


End of a Line

by solrosan



Series: End of a Line [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, PTSD Eggsy, PTSD Harry, PTSD Tilde, Post-Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prince Eggsy Unwin, Prince Gary, Svenska | Swedish, Therapy, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-15 13:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15414117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: This is the eight months long missing scene between Eggsy leaving Kentucky and his wedding to Crown princess Tilde of Sweden where they deal with not just the wedding planning, but the aftermath of the events ofThe Golden Circle.Because when the fear and adrenaline is gone, what happens then? What goes into marrying the heir apparent to a monarchy in the 21stcentury? Is the prince-part mandatory? Is it possible to be a secret agent while being a prince? What press release? Who has a say in this, you say? Andthe Queen of Englandis on the guest list?! What else did we miss?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is, in spite of the word count, my Mini Bang fic for Kingsman Bigbang 2018 and the one story I thought I had in me to write in this fandom. (Oh, boy, was I wrong! There are so many more!) 
> 
> [writehandman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writehandman/pseuds/writehandman) ([mooseinaboot](https://mooseinaboot.tumblr.com/) at Tumblr) made [this lovely art](https://78.media.tumblr.com/df5e36ae0ff2020f8f52d1c72ffbba51/tumblr_pc2sovK9AW1wxvcgjo2_1280.png) for the fic! If you're afraid of spoilers (thought this is a very minor one given the tags) I've also put it in the notes for the chapter where it's from. 
> 
> I want to say a huge thank you to all the people over at the discord for all their encouragement and to the mods who organized it! A special thank you to [insaneredragon]() for always being there with kind and encouraging words, for cheering me on, and for doing an amazing beta read for me! Thank you so much!
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you read this on a computer, you'll be able to hover the mouse pointer over the few Swedish lines I've put in to get a translation. If you're reading on mobile or tablet, a full translation will be found in the notes, but the translations aren't necessary for the understanding of the fic.
> 
> * * *
> 
>   
> 

It felt so good holding her again, having his face buried against her neck, her hair tickling his nose. He could feel her breath. Her warmth. Her hands gripping his jacket as if she never wanted to let go of him ever again.

Eggsy didn’t want to let go either. Knowing how close he had come to lose her – to his own stupidity and to Poppy’s insanity – made his legs weak.

It was only three hours since he had landed in Sweden and he was still painfully jetlagged from the flight back from Kentucky, but after everything that had happened these last few weeks he finally started to relax.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Eggsy whispered. “I thought I’d-- _Fuck_. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” said Tilde, her voice barely holding. “And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m— I love you.”

They were still standing just inside the door of Tilde’s private (but not very secret) home on Strandvägen. It was as neutral a space as they could find in Stockholm for their first meeting since that morning at the hotel before Glastonbury. It felt like an eternity ago. On his way up, Eggsy had been so nervous that he’d had difficulty breathing. Sure, they had talked a lot since she got the antidote – the last time just as Eggsy boarded the plane at Heathrow – but it wasn’t the same. And now…

“Marry me,” Eggsy said, with his face still against her neck.

“What? You sure?”

He nodded. “Hundred percent. Marry me.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Eggsy lifted his head so that he could look at her. She kissed him, once, twice, and he could feel her smile against his lips. He gave her a third kiss before getting down on one knee, taking her hands in his.

“Eggsy, you don’t have—“

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I don’t want there to be any confusion, because I know what I said about my job. And about your job. But… but life’s fucked up and unpredictable and I want to spend the rest of mine with you. I don’t care about the other stuff. To hell with it. We’ll figure that shit out. Okay?”

Tilde nodded.

“Okay, so…” said Eggsy, barely audible and mostly to himself. He took a moment to glance at their hands and take a deep breath before looking up at her again. “Tilde, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

Eggsy let go of her hands and started to take off his signet ring.

“This is a loan,” he said as he took her hand again and put the ring on her finger. “I’m going to get you a proper one, okay?”

Tilde nodded again. “Okay.”

Eggsy smiled. He kissed her knuckle above the ring, then he got up and hugged her. Then he lifted her up and swirled her around the small space, almost knocking over a lamp, laughing. This was not what he had planned for his first night in Stockholm, but then again, life is unpredictable.


	2. Chapter 2

> **Engagement between Crown Princess Tilde and Gary Unwin**  
>  Today, Tuesday 12 September 2017, the engagement between Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Tilde and Mr. Gary Unwin was announced at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
> 
> After His Majesty The King of Sweden had given his consent to the marriage between the Crown Princess and Mr. Unwin, His Majesty, in accordance with the procedures set out in the Swedish Constitution, requested the agreement by the Swedish Government, which was subsequently communicated to His Majesty in connection with an information council held at the Royal Palace today.
> 
> The wedding is planned to take place in the early summer of 2018. In connection with the wedding Mr. Unwin will be invested with the title Prince Gary, Duke of Västergötland. The question of residence for the Crown Princess and her future consort is subject to further consideration. Some different alternatives are being examined.
> 
> **Meeting with the press**  
>  Media is invited to meet with the Crown Princess and Mr. Gary Unwin today at 17:00 hours in Princess Sibylla’s Apartment at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. This will not be a traditional press conference, but rather a photo opportunity with a possibility to put a few questions to the couple. For this reason we are mainly directing ourselves to larger media with a wide distribution both nationally and internationally. Only one writing journalist per media will be invited. For photos we refer to picture agencies.
> 
> Access to the Royal Palace will be provided from 16:00 hours through the main entrance at Västra valvet. All journalist should have taken their seats at 16:45 hours at the latest.
> 
> Frida Lind  
>  Director of Press & Communication

Eggsy read the press release again. He had no idea what to do with it so he settled on checking that his name was spelled correctly and that the date corresponded with the right day of the week. He wasn’t sure “invested” was the right verb to use for making someone a prince, but he trusted Frida to know royal English better than he ever would.

Tilde was in the bedroom, yelling at her parents over the phone for drawing up a press release without talking to them first. It was a draft, it hadn’t gone out yet, but Tilde was still livid. In the three days since Eggsy had arrived in Stockholm, they had done nothing to make their engagement public seeing how four days ago neither of them had been sure that they were even together. They had told their parents (and a few carefully chosen friends) and Tilde had received an oral promise from her dad that he wouldn’t strip her of names and titles for marrying a commoner, but that was about it.

Instead they had stayed in bed and ordered pizza. They had rewatched the first season of _Stranger Things_. They had talked over glasses of wine and mugs of coffee. They had talked about what happened in Glastonbury. They had talked about everything that happened after Glastonbury. About Harry, and about Merlin (but not about Roxy or the night of the explosions). They had talked about how ridiculous ‘Prince Eggsy’ sounded and about how all engagement rings should have the ability to electrocute someone…

Now there was a press release.

The bubble had burst and it felt like someone had smacked him right in the face with a flat iron. He hadn’t even got Tilde a proper ring yet like he promised. And apparently he needed one too.

Eggsy’s head was spinning. He didn’t know which part was most insane, the fact that the Swedish government got a say in whether or not he could marry Tilde or the idea of becoming Prince Gary and the duke of a place he couldn’t pronounce.

Tilde finally came out of the bedroom, her phone still in a tight grip and she sat down opposite Eggsy at the small kitchen table with a deep sigh.

“I hate them,” she said as she put away the phone. “Absolutely hate them.”

“Do you want a glass of wine?” he asked, already on his way to get up.

Tilde nodded. She picked up the press release and made a frustrated sound.

“I don’t understand how they can be so... so… I mean, look at this.”

“It’s okay,” said Eggsy, placing a glass in front of her. ”We needed to do this at some point anyway, right?”

“Yes, but look at it!” Tilde held up the paper to him. “They can’t— Next summer? And do you even want to be a prince?”

Eggsy raised his eyebrows and sat down again. “I have a choice?”

“Of course you—” Tilde reached for his hand. “Of course you do. It’s not just, it’s… complicated. I don’t even know half of it, but it’s not something they should decide without us. Definitely not without you.”

“Maybe it’s their way of saying that they’re really okay with this?”

Tilde shook her head, reading the draft one more time with a frown. “If anything, it’s their way of testing if we’re really serious.”

“Scare tactics,” said Eggsy with an almost amused smile. “Don’t worry, they can’t scare me with shit I thought came with the gig.”

“You need to be sure before we let this thing go out, though.”

“What did they say when you talked to them?”

Tilde sighed. “They backed down, but that’s not the point. They shouldn’t have done this at all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Eggsy again, squeezing her hand. “I’ll be a prince and the duke of wherever.”

“Västergötland, apparently.” Tilde took one last look at the press release. “But we’re not doing it on a Tuesday. They aren’t getting everything.”

She turned the press release upside down so she wouldn’t have to see it anymore. That was that.

  


* * *

  


Tilde was already up when Eggsy got out of bed the next morning. She sat on her yoga mat in the sitting room, very clearly not doing yoga and instead splitting her focus between the laptop on the floor next to her and the phone in her hand.

She lifted her head and smiled at him. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I think the coffee’s still hot.”

“Morning,” Eggsy mumbled. He gave her a kiss and picked her mug off the floor. “Want a refill?”

“Yes, please.”

Eggsy glanced at the laptop screen, but since it was all in Swedish he gave up right away. Judging by the border of the open webpage he could at least draw the conclusion that what she was reading was something official. When he came back, she had closed the laptop. He gave her the coffee and sat down on the sofa.

“You’ve been up long?” he asked.

“Not really, I just needed to look up some things.” Tilde turned around on the yoga mat so that she was facing him. “We need to start thinking about an official story of how we met if we’re really going to get this ball rolling.”

“What?” said Eggsy, smirking. “Me saving the world and you letting me fuck you in the arse isn’t romantic enough anymore?”

“Of course it is,” said Tilde, matching his smile, “but I don’t think ’romantic’ is what we should be aiming for.”

“Can’t we go with the version we told your parents? I worked at the shop, you came to find a suit, we exchanged numbers… There can’t be a more child friendly version of it.”

“We could, but it’s hard to leave out Kingsman from that version, which means the shop will be the centre of a lot of media attention and I’m thinking that’s not ideal?”

“Don’t worry about that. It was an actual tailor shop and just about everything that could be tied to the side business was destroyed.”

“You sure?”

Eggsy nodded, he was painfully sure about the last part. “Also, won’t your parents be suspicious if we change the story?”

“Not really. It’s not like they actually started their relationship sending postcards to each other when they were dragged on representation trips around the world by their parents.”

“That sounds like a story I need to hear.”

“Another time.” Tilde winked. Then she became more serious again. “How do you want to handle the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?”

“The story. Our story. It’s… it’s not a pretty one.”

Eggsy frowned. “There’s a law or something that says it has to be?”

“No, but… we were a mess back then, both of us,” said Tilde. “I’ve already done a lot of my sharing, but are you ready to talk about that time in front of a camera?”

“You mean the ugly crying on the phone?”

“All of it.”

Eggsy had to admit he hadn’t thought that far. At all. There were three people who knew what a disaster the first few months after the Valentine Incident had been for him, and out of those three only Tilde was still alive. His mum didn’t know the half of it. And Harry… Harry knew none of it.

“We helped each other through something that was… fucked up,” he finally said, meeting her eyes. “That was— I don’t know where I’d be without you, and I don’t have a problem telling people that. I think. What about you? Do you want to talk about it?”

“As I said, I’ve done most of my sharing,” said Tilde with a short shrug. “Everyone knows I was kidnapped. Everyone knows I was betrayed by the Prime Minister. Everyone knows I took a sabbatical and ran off to London. The difference is that now I can be honest and tell them what got me through.”

“Was it yoga?”

Tilde burst out giggling and the tension that had filled the room disappeared. “No, it was extremely kinky sex.”

“No way we’ll get in trouble with your parents for that answer,” Eggsy said, grinning. “So that’s settled, then?”

“If you’re sure?”

Eggsy nodded. “Yeah.”

“Perfect,” said Tilde with a smile. “One thing less, then.”

“The fewer the lies, the easier it is to keep track,” Eggsy said. “Learned that when I started to sneak out during school nights.”

“True.” Tilde got a thoughtful wrinkle between her eyes. “We still need to figure out a way for you to talk about Harry, though.”

“In that case I’ll need a second cup,” said Eggsy, holding up his mug and heading to the kitchen. It was still way too early in his day to plan even the least elaborate cover story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The press release is heavily based on the press release that went out when Crown princess Victoria and Prince Daniel announced their engagement (though Frida Lind is made up).
> 
> 2\. [Floor plan and pictures of Tilde's flat on Strandvägen](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ztbX6T24Xovq5ib3Ut4a-kD-gXCUYPNH)


	3. Chapter 3

“Ready?” said Tilde, her hand on the golden door handle.

“No,” Eggsy said, shaking his head. On the other side of the door representatives from some of the largest media outlets in the Nordic countries waited for them to hold a press conference. Eggsy had to admit he was impressed by the media’s ability to mobilise since the finished press release only went out five hours earlier.

“Two more minutes?” Tilde asked.

Eggsy smiled weakly. Two minutes wouldn’t be enough. Two years probably wouldn’t be enough. He still wasn’t ready for the parts of the day that had _already passed_. They had barely finished breakfast before they met with the Prime Minister and as of 12:10 CET when their short broadcast ended, he was Mr Gary Unwin, future consort of Crown princess Tilde of Sweden. That alone would take _weeks_ to process.

Tilde let go of the door handle and instead took both his hands. “This is the worst bit,” she said quietly. “It’s ten minutes. Twenty at most.”

Eggsy nodded, he knew that. They had talked about it at length. The plan was to keep everything short and vague since they hadn’t hashed out all the details yet, but stick to the overall story they had decided on.

“And we can take this in English, if you like,” Tilde continued. “You were so good at the announcement today. You don’t have to do this one in Swedish too.”

Eggsy made a face. “Were any of those sounds I made even words?”

“Most of them,” Tilde said, smiling. “Seriously, even mum and dad were impressed.”

“Won’t people hate me for not speaking Swedish or something?”

“They will definitely hate you for something, but today they are more interested in how you proposed than how your Swedish is coming along.”

“You sure?”

“Almost.”

They stood in silence for a while, their foreheads touching. Then Eggsy nodded, and with one hand still holding Eggsy’s, Tilde opened the door.

The number of flashes were blinding as they walked into the room. Eggsy blinked and let Tilde lead him to the insanely expensive-looking sofa that was put out especially for this occasion. On the matching table in front of it, someone had placed nine microphones. He did his best to not let his eyes dart back and forth, but it was hard. A conservative estimate gave him twenty people in the room. Tilde squeezed his hand, and he turned to meet her eyes. She was smiling, and he couldn’t not do the same.

This was insane and clearly not real.

Tilde welcomed them all here, starting in English right away without giving any explanation for it and asking if it was all right with everyone. She got a mumbling confirmation from the crowd, and then she went on to answer the first question about if they could see the ring.

They were once again blinded by flashes as Tilde held up her hand. The ring was made out of white gold with a solitaire diamond. She had moaned a little about this one not being able to electrocute anyone – and Eggsy had almost fainted when he saw the price tag on it – but it was a ring worthy of a future queen.

Eggsy quietly watched his fiancée in awe as she held and coordinated the press conference like the trained politician he suddenly realised she was. He barely listened to what she said.

Suddenly, a woman to his right addressed him. “And you, Mr Unwin, how do you feel?”

“Overwhelmed,” said Eggsy with a sigh and a smile when he found himself. The crowd politely laughed. They had gone through most of the answers in Swedish, and he was surprised that he was grasping for words in English now. “Happy and excited, but overwhelmed. This is all very new to me.”

“We’ve understood that you’ve only know each other for a few years,” a male reporter to their left asked. “Why the rush to get married?”

Eggsy and Tilde met each other’s eyes. This was where the lying started. Tide lowered her chin slightly to say Eggsy could take this one.

“We met shortly after the Valentine Terrorist Attack,” he said, and they shared a short smile before he looked back at the reporter. “With all that happened, we both felt that life is too unpredictable and fragile to wait when you know it’s right.”

“Speaking of how you two met, how did you two meet?”

“After I went to London in 2014, I visited Kingsman Tailor,” said Tilde. She squeezed Eggsy’s hand and smiled. ”And there he was.”

“I dazzled the Crown princess with my amazing needlework,” Eggsy said, winking at Tilde, and the reporters laughed. “I think my first words to her were ’Aren’t you that princess who went missing?’ or something. I can’t believe she ever spoke to me again.”

The room laughed again and Tilde blushed. Eggsy wondered if that was something she could do on cue or if that actually made her blush, but then his brain unhelpfully reminded him of how the rest of that conversation had gone and he blushed as well.

“After that we stayed in touch,” he continued, clearing his throat as he faced the reporter who had asked the question. “There were a lot of long late night calls and insane phone bills. We both really needed someone to talk to about what had happened. I had lost a very close friend in connection to the terrorist attack and felt very lost at that time. The Crown princess, she brought me back.”

Tilde squeezed his hand again and for a moment, it was just the two of them as Tilde mouthed ‘same’, but they were quickly brought back by the cascade of flashes.

“Gary has been an amazing support for me since the first time we met,” said Tilde, without taking her eyes off him. “I don’t know where I’d be without him.”

There was a moment of almost complete silence in the room before a reporter asked if it had been Eggsy who proposed. After that, the press conference went on in the same, light-hearted way with questions about rings and Swedish lessons until Tilde wrapped it up by saying that it was time for some last pictures. They placed themselves in front of the doors which they had come out of and as the press reorganised themselves to take the photos, Eggsy leaned in and whispered in Tilde’s ear, “You can still make a run for it.”

She giggled. “Never. How about you, scared yet?”

“Nope,” he said. “Still not sure any of this is really happening. Ask me again tomorrow.”

She buffed him gently with her shoulder. Then they both straightened up to face the cameras. Dutifully they smiled – it wasn’t very hard – and held up their hands, showing off their rings. Later, when he saw the pictures of their hands, Eggsy would love how Tilde’s was perfectly manicured and while his still had red scars from when he had fought Charlie.

It was fitting. It told their story better than any of the other pictures did. 

  


* * *

  


The door to the office closed. Frida Lind – the head of Press & Communication – had just left under the pretence of getting them all some coffee and hunt down some cinnamon buns. She probably wouldn’t return without it, but they all knew it was just an excuse to give Tilde and Eggsy some space.

Tilde turned from the door to Eggsy who sat in the chair next to her. She touched his arm tentatively, but got no physical acknowledgement.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Mm, yeah, fine,” mumbled Eggsy flipping through a magazine. Then he turned to her with a weak smile. “Sorry, it’s just a bit…”

“I know.”

“They’ve made face mashes of what our kids will look like,” he said, absently waving the magazine he was holding and refused to look at it again.

“There’s an app for that.”

“They’ve named them! And how did they get pictures of my dad?”

Tilde took the magazine from him and tossed it on the floor. Out of sight, out of mind. This was their first meeting with the press office since the engagement had been announced. Tilde had a standing biweekly meeting with Frida where they went through if there were anything written lately that she needed to know about – the answer was almost always no. This had temporarily been changed to a weekly thing until the wedding, and the three of them had decided that it was probably for the best if Eggsy was in all the meetings as well.

After just twenty minutes, Eggsy had started to regret it. The first reports about the engagement were, however, overwhelmingly positive, even if a lot of historians bluntly called this the Death of the Swedish Monarchy. All of them also drew moving parallels to Tilde’s grandfather, though, who hadn’t been allowed to marry a commoner. So that was something.

Eggsy felt a bit discouraged both by being called the end of a state of government and by being compared to a woman who hadn’t been deemed worthy to marry into the Royal family. Other than that, he supposed it was fine? No one seemed to have bothered doing any real digging into his past and neither his criminal or military record had surfaced.

Yet.

Eggsy reached for another magazine that Frida had earmarked. Before he managed to find the page he wanted – it was in Swedish so he didn’t bother reading anything – Tilde took it from him as well and tossed it the same way she had the other.

He frowned and got another one. Tilde took it from him and threw this one over the shoulder. Slowly, Eggsy reach for the next in the pile, but Tilde darted forward and stole it before he had the chance and threw that one too.

He laughed. “What are you doing?”

“Sanity exercises,” she said, taking a magazine he hadn’t even tried to get and threw it across the room. “You’ll go insane if you read all of them. It’s like reading the comment sections on Youtube.”

“But why has Frida brought them if we shouldn’t look at them?”

“It’s so that she can find it if you ask for something specific, like how they _did_ get that picture of your dad.” She picked a newspaper from a different pile and gave it to him. “Here. Throw it.”

Eggsy took the newspaper. The headline was a pun of some kind but he couldn’t make out if it was clever or lazy and the picture next to it was of the two of them on the sofa, showing off the ring. He gave Tilde a sceptical look.

She nodded. “Trust me.”

Eggsy shrugged and threw the paper across the room. It hit the wall and fell on the floor. Tilde gave him another one. He threw it without thinking twice about it. The same with the third. The fourth time she put a magazine in his hand he shook his head and smiled.

“Is this what you do every time you have these meetings?”

“No. Sometime I threw them off the roof.”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or not. She winked at him, which didn’t help the case either way. He was just about to throw this magazine as well when there was a knock on the door and Frida – brown hair and crazy glasses – peeked into her own office.

“Ready for fika?”

“I think so.” Tilde looked at Eggys who nodded. “Yes, we are.”

Tilde got up to help Frida carry in the tray with coffee and cinnamon buns. Frida moved the magazines Tilde had thrown on the floor with her foot and gave Tilde a look Eggsy could have sworn was filled with pride.

“So, where were we?” asked Frida rhetorically as she sat down behind her desk again when they all had coffee and buns. “SVT has let SCB do a poll on public opinion…”

Frida handed Tilde a folder containing mostly diagrams and numbers as she kept talking about how 82 % of the Swedish people were in favour of the engagement. Eggsy’s gaze drifted to the magazine he still held in his hand. On the front page was a small picture of the old Kingsman shop. Eggsy let the magazine slide down on the floor.

He really wished he was right about how air-tight the agency’s front actually was. 

  


* * *

  


Eggsy stood in the kitchen, listening to _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ in Swedish as he made dinner. He was surprised by how much he understood, but he did have an English translation of the book lying open on the countertop just in case.

Mikael Blomkvist’s daughter had just told him that the phone numbers in the diary weren’t phone numbers but Bible passages when Eggsy heard someone unlock the front door. He wiped his hand on the towel over his shoulder and paused the audio book.

“Babe, that’s you?” he asked, glancing at the page in the book to double check that he got the thing with the Bible right since it seemed like an important detail.

“Yes,” came Tilde’s voice from the other room. “Sorry I’m late. I had to stop by the gift room, someone had sent us an engagement present.”

“Isn’t that the point of the entire room,” asked Eggsy, turning around just in time to see her come into the kitchen.

“Yes, but this one’s special,” she said with a smile, holding up the present wrapped in green paper with silver string. “Guess who it’s from.”

Eggsy took it, eyeing in suspiciously. “Slytherin? Is it a snake?”

Tilde slapped him gently on the shoulder. “Guess again, it’s a real person.”

“The Pope?”

“No, someone better.”

“The Queen of England?”

“No, she’ll just be getting us a wedding gift.”

Eggsy blinked. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“The woman on the money is going to send us a wedding gift?”

“Yes.”

Eggsy stared at her. The Queen was going to send him a wedding gift. The Queen. The… He leaned back against the counter, the gift in a tight grip in both hands.

“Eggsy,” said Tilde, smiling. “You alright?”

“I’m… not sure? I think my brain’s stopped working.”

Tilde gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sit down and open the present and you’ll see it’ll get better.”

“You know what this is?” Eggsy asked, holding up the present a little.

“Yes, they open everything when they get it, so when they told me about this one I rewrapped it for you.” She looked very proud about this.

“So _you’re_ the Slytherin,” he said, smirking as he sat down at the table to open the present. “Should have known.”

Tilde stuck out her tongue a few times in an imitation of a snake. Eggsy chuckled as he untied the ribbon and threw it her way. He ripped the paper and saw that it was a picture frame. Inside were two yellow butterflies and underneath them it said _Gonepteryx Rhamni_.

He shook his head, smiling. “Harry.”

“There’s a card too,” said Tilde, holding it out to him.

Eggsy opened it. It read:

 _These are a male and female_ Gonepteryx rhamni, _both from Greece. They are however native to Sweden and I’ve learned that folklore has it, that if this is the first butterfly of the season, it will be a good summer._

_Warm Regards  
H.H._

Eggsy shook his head, and placed the frame so that it was standing on the table. “What’s a home without a few dead bugs?”

“My thought exactly,” said Tilde. She put her hand on the back of his neck, stroking him with her thumb. “We need to find a better place for it than in the kitchen, though.”

Eggsy nodded. Tilde had been right, this was much better than both the Pope and Queen Elizabeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The engagement present Harry sent](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D-FkhgAUIragH2sUH3vxsximkF5pSuQH), I've only ever heard one person talking about the lore he's talking about, but I like it and have chosen to believe in it for over 15 years now.


	4. Chapter 4

It was still early when Eggsy put in his earbuds and left the flat, the morning rush hadn’t started yet and the streets of central Stockholm were almost abandoned. The first tram to Djurgården passed by empty. Eggsy looked both ways (one time too many just to be sure, because the traffic came from the wrong direction) and then jogged across the street and followed the tram.

He’d had a nightmare about South Glade Mission Church again. It had been a while since the last time, but this time, instead of it ending as it had done in the past – with a version of Harry dying – he had woken up with Roxy’s name on his lips and a gut-wrecking feeling that he had shot her. No amount of cold water splashed on his face had made him able to completely shake it off.

So running alongside Lake Mälaren, following an empty tram to Djurgården, with white smoke coming out of his mouth for every breath he took felt good. Just one foot in front of the other. Moving forward. It had been a long time since he’d been able to put in a proper workout that it felt amazing to get his heart pumping.

It cleared the head.

It was three weeks since they had announced the engagement and during that time almost every minute of every day had been planned and coordinated. It started to dawn on him that being a prince was actually a job. It was way more than titles and cutting some ribbons now and then. It was all day, every day, all the time.

It would be really hard to combine this very scheduled career with his other very need-based and spontaneous one and that was _after_ he had figured out what to do about the fact that there would be about a billion photos of him in circulation before he even said “I do”. Tilde kept telling him that they’ll figure it out, but he couldn’t see how that would be possible. 

If he were allowed to psychoanalyze himself, he’d say that this insight was what had brought back the nightmares, but the ones he’d had after Harry got shot had started a few weeks after the incident itself so perhaps this was just his breakdown cycle.

Eggsy increased his speed, pushed a little harder, and tried not to think about that. He didn’t have the option of breaking down this time. Roxy and Merlin… that was for after the wedding. And Brandon…

No.

He focused on his breathing. His steps. His muscles. His body. The music in his ears. The cold air against his cheeks. Fuck this weather.

He turned right over the Djurgården Bridge and then crossed the street again (this time without bothering to look for the non-existing traffic) and continued through the blue gates into the park. He barely knew where he was going, having only been there once before in daylight, but he figured he’d find his way back. Worst case scenario it would be an amusing headline when some tourists would find him wandering lost and confused out here after daybreak, but he honestly didn’t think he could get lost in this city.

Not that he’d get much opportunity to test that theory, being an official part of the Royal family came with some serious restrictions concerning walking around on his own. That made this feel even better, because right now it was only him and the frozen track. It was a bit like sneaking out after curfew, with the main difference that he had told Tilde exactly where he was going.

He kept running. Just running. Until his lungs burned and his hands and feet started to feel like ice. Then he stopped, his hands on his thighs, trying to take deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth.

When his pulse was down and it felt all right to breathe again, he turned around and jogged back. He wondered how long he’d been running. The sun still wasn’t up, but the tram he met had at least two poor sods in it and when he left Djurgården behind, the morning traffic was on its way.

Stockholm was clearly waking up.

Eggsy slipped in the front door, feeling fairly sure that no one had recognised him. (He wondered if anyone would recognise him at all yet.) He took the steps two at the time. His cold fingers fumbled with the keys. When he got the door open, he was hit with the smell of freshly made coffee. It pushed a lot of the darkness away.

He took off his shoes, but didn’t bother taking off anything else.

Tilde sat at the small table in the kitchen, one foot on the seat of the chair. She had dark marks under her eyes, having clearly been up waiting for him since he left.

“I’m fine,” he said to her unspoken question. “Needed to clear my head, is all.”

“If you want to talk about her…”

Eggsy nodded. “I know. I just… not now.”

He sat down opposite her and she offered him her hand. He twined their fingers together, but when she noticed how cold his hand was she took both his hands in hers. Her warmth seeped through him, and for a long time they just sat there in silence, watching the sun rise over Stockholm.

  


* * *

  


The interview was over.

The cameras had left.

For five days they had been followed by a TV crew from Sweden’s national public broadcaster as they pretended to move into Princess Sibylla’s apartment, the rooms in Stockholm Palace that would be theirs, and talk about the wedding. It was all sickeningly staged, but as Tilde said, it helped them control the narrative and gave them a chance to tell the story they wanted to tell.

The five days of filming had ended with a long sit-down interview about how they met, how they got to know each other, everything, and now Eggsy was just… done. Tilde had made them take their shoes off again. (Seriously, Eggsy would never get the hang on when and where it was okay to wear shoes in this country…) Exhausted, Eggsy fell headfirst down on their bed, his face deep in a pillow. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice told him to take off his jacket as well, but he couldn’t be arsed to.

“Eggsy.”

Eggsy grunted. There was something in the way Tilde said his name that made him 100 % sure that he didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Du kan inte göra så där.” 

Eggsy grunted again.

”Eggsy, sätt dig upp! Jag försöker prata med dig.”

Eggsy sat up, reluctantly. ”I’ve spent three hours with a bloody camera in my face, talking your stupid excuse for a language, so if you want to argue it’s going to have to be in English.”

Tilde glared at him. She was taking off her pearl earrings, and she, as opposed to Eggsy, had taken off her jacket already. “We’ve been over this. We can’t contradict each other in interviews. We have to present a united front.”

“What?”

“We have a story, and we’re sticking to that story or else before we know it there’s another book about how my great-grandfather helped the Nazis.”

Eggsy rubbed his face with one hand. “That makes no sense? What are you talking about?“

“People will be speculating enough about us without anyone giving them TV footage of us arguing.”

”Screw that, who cares what people think?”

”You don’t get it!”

“Clearly,” Eggsy muttered. He unbuttoned his jacked and stood to hang it up. “But you seriously need to tell me what we’re arguing about. What did I say?”

“I said we got professional help, you said you didn’t.”

“Because I didn’t. I’m not going to sit there all dressed up with make-up on and pretend I got shit I didn’t.”

“We talked about—“

“No, we didn’t,” Eggsy interrupted. “And either way, you knew this already. You – of all people – knew I didn’t get anything.”

Tilde sighed. “It was one thing. You could have just shut up about it.”

“No!”

“Why?”

“Because _most_ people didn’t get any fucking help with that shit!” said Eggsy, raising his voice. “Merlin arranged one session for me, which I walked out of—“

“And now everyone will know.”

“—and then I spent three weeks on Roxy’s pull-out, crying myself to sleep more nights than not. That’s _not_ professional help and I’m not going to lie and say differently to fit some stupid narrative. Normal people didn’t get any help with that shit!”

“’Normal people’?”

“Poor people!”

“Eggsy!”

“No! I had you, Roxy, and Merlin. That’s it. All of it. You know that. And that’s still more than what a lot of people ever got! Daisy has nightmares about our mum coming at her with a fucking axe! Where’s her professional help?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what the fuck is?”

“You can’t contradict me in public!” Tilde yelled.

“Ever? I’m not allowed to say anything that goes against you ever?”

“No!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Welcome to reality!” Tilde screamed, throwing her arms out.

“Nothing, _nothing_ is real about this!” Eggsy snatched up his jacket and stormed out of the room. He made sure to slam the door as hard as he could, hoping that the chandelier would fall from the ceiling. He stood outside in the hallway, taking deep breaths through is nose. 

He started walking, almost running, through the rooms. He knew his way around this part of the palace well enough by now, and after a shortcut through a library and via a staircases, he locked himself into a small bathroom. With his back against the door, he slid down to the floor, staring straight ahead. The only thing he heard was his own breathing – and the faint ringing that was a souvenir from standing too close to a few explosions.

“Fuck,” he whispered, letting his head fall back with a soft thump. He could probably have handled that better. The sudden flash of anger was gone and with it, his last energy reserve.

He’d thought he was ready to talk about this, the half-truth they had constructed out of kidnappings, dead friends, midnight phone calls, breakdowns, and mutual support. They had gone through it so many times that he wasn’t completely sure what was true and what wasn’t anymore. Apparently he had been wrong.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and got out his phone, wanting desperately to call Roxy. (He wondered if that feeling would ever go away.) Instead he called Tilde.

“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she picked up.

Eggsy sighed. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Come back?”

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“Green bathroom.”

“Should I come up?”

“No.”

They sat silently, listening to each other breathing. They had done that a lot during their first year of knowing each other. One of them had called to not be alone with whatever was going on in their head at that moment and the other had just… been there. It had been such a comfort to have someone there always, at any time, without having to say or explain anything. 

That part of the interview hadn’t been made up.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” Eggsy finally said when he found the words again. It wasn’t the ones he had been looking for, but there they were. His doubt suddenly spoken aloud. He had tried so hard to not make any mistakes, to stay inside the lines, and yet…

Tilde was silent for a moment. “Which part?”

“All of them?” said Eggsy with a joyless laugh. “I’m not— I’m a— I’m a pleb, I don’t do shit like this. I _can’t_. You deserve someone who’s… who’s…”

“Come down again, Eggsy,” said Tilde quietly as he trailed off. “Please?”

“Mm,” Eggsy mumbled. He didn’t hang up, but he got on his feet. Still with the phone at his ear he walked back downstairs. He didn’t even bother hanging up when he opened the door to their bedroom, he just tossed his mobile on the bed.

He hugged her, seeking comfort in her closeness until it became easier to breathe again. Eggsy had his face buried against her shoulder and she clutched the back of his shirt.

“I love you,” Tilde whispered. “We’ll figure this out. You and me, okay?”

“I won’t do it again,” mumbled Eggsy. “Promise.”

“I didn’t mean— Eggsy, it’s— It’s not your fault.” Tilde let go so that she could look at him. “My world, my mess, my responsibility. I’m sorry I got mad. I know what that first year was like for you. I thought it’d be easier on you if we didn’t linger on it. I should have talked to you.”

Eggsy smiled weakly. “You tried to protect me…”

“Even knights need protecting sometimes.”

“I’m not a knight.”

“You’re my knight.”

Eggsy leaned forward so that their foreheads touched. “Have I made a huge mess of things?”

“I don’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have done that. I know that. It was just—”

“Hey, no, listen,” said Tilde. “You need to be comfortable with our lies, because it will become our lives. The lies aren’t to make you someone you’re not, okay?”

Eggsy nodded.

”If it’s important to you that we tell your story that close to the truth, we’ll do that.”

“I’d like that, yeah.”

“Okay,” Tilde said, smiling. “Then I’ll call Johanna tomorrow and tell her we’d want to add some things.”

“You can do that?”

“You have your superpowers, I have mine.”

Eggsy tentatively smiled. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.” She put a hand over his heart. “I just need you to be sure, okay?”

Eggsy nodded. He really wasn’t sure, but he’d much rather tell the truth about this than dodge it because it would be easier.

“And to be clear,” said Tilde with a hand on his cheek, “you _are_ my knight and the kindest person I’ve ever met. You’re not a pleb.”

Eggsy smiled for her, not entirely convinced that one took out the other, but also not in the mood to argue again

“We’ll just prep better next time,” Tilde said.

Eggsy made a face. “There’ll be a next time?”

Tilde’s only reply was to give him a soft kiss on the lips. He swallowed a sigh. Next time. Of course there would be a next time. At the end of every mission lay another one. Every public appearance was a mission that needed intelligence gathering, planning, and practice. That was probably how he needed to look at it if he were to get through them.

An undercover mission where he needed to learn how to play the prince. When Tilde slipped her arms around him again and leaned against him, he knew that at least right now, being Eggsy was enough though and that felt good.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy reached out his hand, pressing the spacebar on the laptop and pausing the video. He and Tilde sat at the dining room table and had just finished watching the finished cut of the hour long program that was the result of the five days of filming last month.

They had poured themselves a glass of wine, joking about watching it the entire evening, but now they sat there, quietly, and looked at the frozen screen with the credit roll. It had been good. Really. They had smiled a lot throughout. The addition they had made fitted well with the rest. The long silence following Eggsy’s mention of his dead friend and mentor was kept in its entirety (twenty-one seconds) and was excruciating to watch. The moment when Tilde almost started to cry and they had taken a break had been cut almost as soon as she had finished the last sentence. Eggsy hadn’t realised how often they looked at each other during the interview.

“That’s so weird…” said Eggsy after a long silence.

Tilde closed the computer. “Yeah, seeing yourself on TV takes some getting used to.”

Eggsy gave her a look and a smile. That sounded like something she knew was the right thing to say but that she couldn’t relate to. He wondered if there had ever been a time when having a public self hadn’t been normal to her.

“Not that,” he said. “Or yeah, that too – and _God_ , my Swedish sucks!”

“Does not,” said Tilde. She took his hand, looking down at them and stalling a little for time. “I’ve been thinking since we did this, do you… do you want to sit down and talk to someone now if we can arrange it?”

“What, like with a shrink?”

“Like a therapist, yes.”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Eggsy said with half a smile. “I mean, Harry’s alive and all that’s…. I don’t know. How am I even supposed to talk about any of it? In the interview I kept mashing up Harry and Merlin. I can’t keep track of all that without an excel sheet.”

“I know, but…”

“I’m not going to take up some poor sod’s time lying and making shit up. What’s the point of that?”

Tilde shook her head. “I don’t know. It helped me a lot, and I— It was only a suggestion.”

“I’m fine now.” Eggsy squeezed her hand reassuringly, but the smile she gave him wasn’t convinced.

“What do you say, should we give a green light for the interview?” she asked, changing the subject.

Eggsy shrugged. “Sure.”

Tilde gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then she got up, taking the laptop with her. Eggsy sighed, hiding his face in his hands. As much as he liked that they kept most of their story – because he liked their story – a part of him wanted to go back in time and kick his own arse for not taking Tilde’s lead and thinking this was a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Floor plan and pictures of Stockholm Palace](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_9qhiAk8DzUY4j1cubiOBGaT_yuWjt4z)
> 
> 2.  
> Swedish: "Du kan inte göra så där.”  
> English: "You can't do that."
> 
> Swedish: "Eggsy, sätt dig upp! Jag försöker prata med dig."  
> English: "Eggsy, sit up! I’m trying to talk to you."


	5. Chapter 5

Eggsy reached for the remote to stop Netflix from jumping right into another episode of _Getting Away with Murder_. He had lost track of how many he had watched tonight – was it three or four? What time was it even?

J.B. had fallen asleep next to him on the sofa and was snoring, so it was probably late. He felt like waking the dog just to have some company. Tilde was in Oslo for a three-day state visit and Eggsy couldn’t help feeling lonely and abandoned in these great rooms of Stockholm Palace.

And out of place.

He missed Tilde’s flat. He understood why moving was a good PR decision -- Frida had explained it very thoroughly -- but he still wished he was back there. It had felt like a home, a place to live. These rooms didn’t. Not even with the dead butterflies in the bedroom. At least the palace was big enough for him not run into his future parents-in-law and having to do small talk about being a tailor, or football, or what A-levels were, or whatever other topic they picked to awkwardly bond with the chav their daughter had decided to marry.

With a deep sigh, Eggy heaved himself off the sofa (just a little bit disappointed that J.B. kept on sleeping) and walked over to a window. He put his forehead against the cool glass and closed his eyes. He was so bored. A golden cage, Lady Diana had described her life with the royal family as and it was hard to not understand what she meant.

He only had himself to blame right now. After the documentary and the interview he had taken a very active step back from the public eye. He didn’t have any official duties yet, but the plan had been for him to accompany Tilde on all her commitments and appearances as some weird on-the-job-training program until the wedding when he got his own portfolio. The only thing he did now was a few wedding related things with the bare minimum of people present.

It was a relief to be honest, but it didn’t stop him from being bored out of his mind when Tilde wasn’t there. All he had done today was play with J.B., Facetime with Daisy for a bit, binge watch Netflix, and play long-distance Halo 5 with Jamal for far too long. It had been fun saving the world again, even if it had been fictional.

It was a bit like being unemployed, even if he technically had two jobs – being a Kingsman agent and a future prince. Tilde had told him to take the time he needed to become more accustomed to the prince-part. More than once she had also said that it might be good if there weren’t too many pictures of him floating around before they had figured out how to manoeuvre the agent-part.

‘Manoeuvre the agent-part…’

Tilde said it with such ease, as if it was just one of the things on the list she had to check off before the wedding. Like it would be as simple as calling a reporter who already had an exclusive interview with them and ask to do a follow-up, or as straightforward as setting up the charity foundation to which people could donate wedding gifts. If Eggsy hadn’t known that it wasn’t even close to that uncomplicated, the sheer number of times she had said it made it clear that she, too, was concerned about it. Nervous even. 

It would be a lie if he said it didn’t keep him up at night, because the biggest problem with having stepped back – beside the boredom – was that he had far too much time to think, to mull things over by himself.

When he proposed he had said that they’d figure it out, his job, her job, all of it, but having lived in this world for just a few months, and having watched Tilde work up close he really couldn’t see any way to combine the two.

No matter what Tilde hinted at being possible if she only put her mind to it.

His breath fogged the cool glass of the window. Slowly he drew a circle, and in it a K on its back. He took a step away and watched it fade. It didn’t take long before he couldn’t make out the shape. Soon after it was gone completely. He felt incredibly lost.

Kingsman was his life. (Kingsman had been his life?) Kingsman had _saved_ his life. When he and Tilde had first got to know each other, he had said that it was Harry who saved his life, but in truth, had been all of Kingsman. The opportunities they gave him, the community they welcomed him into… Kingsman had saved his life and changed the course of it completely. Without them, he wouldn’t be standing in an honest-to-god palace, watching his own reflection in a window.

He took out his mobile to check the time. It wasn’t even midnight. Roxy had told him once that relationships could be ranked by who you wanted to call at 4 a.m. when you felt like shit. Right now – even though it wasn’t even close to 4 a.m. – there was only one person in the world he wanted to call.

So he did.

“Babe?”

The sound of Tilde’s voice made Eggsy smile.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“No, I’m going over the schedule for tomorrow. Something wrong?”

“Nah, I just missed hearing your voice.”

Tilde laughed softly. “Well, then. Do you want me to tell you about my day?”

Eggsy nodded. He wanted nothing more in the world right now than to have her voice block out all the other voices he had in his head, pulling him in every direction.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy cursed. It was the second time he lost count of how much coffee he had put in the coffeemaker. Carefully he lifted out the filter, poured the coffee back in the package and started again. Five. He was supposed to be able to count to five without getting distracted.

One.

Two…

He really needed to talk to Tilde.

...three…

The sooner the better. And Harry. He needed to call—

Four. Four. _Four._

Or should he go to London? It might be an in-person type of conversation.

Five!

Eggsy dropped the measure back in the coffee and took a step back. That was five. He was sure of it. He stepped up to the counter again and put in a little bit of extra coffee (“For the pot” as is grandmother used to say) and went for the water. He pressed start and then he stood there, staring at the coffeemaker as the coffee started to fill the pot.

The kitchenette that had been installed in this part of the palace around the time Tilde was born was one of Eggsy’s favourite parts in their new home. It clashed with all the other rooms and even if it had been state of the art in the 1980’s it was now terribly dated since no one had thought of renovating it. It was that little piece of “normal” that he longed for.

Eggsy filled two mugs with coffee and put the milk back when he was done. He exhaled. Now. He’d do it now. Rip off the plaster. No point in dragging it out if he’d made the decision. And he had. After weeks of thinking about it, he had.

He was going to leave Kingsman.

He knew he’d said that they’d figure it all out, and now he thought he had. Figuring it out never meant having it all, being both a prince and a secret agent wasn’t possible. He knew that now. He had probably always known that.

And he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Tilde, so…

He picked up the mugs and walked to the adjoining drawing room. Tilde sat with her legs crossed on the sofa, paper and fabric samples for invitation cards and serviettes everywhere. She looked tired, but then she had been up since 6 a.m. traveling back and forth to Gothenburg today for a talk about renewable energy at Chalmers University.

Eggsy put down the coffee on the only free surface he could find on the table.

“Tack, älskling,” Tilde mumbled without looking up.

“I’m going to retire,” said Eggsy. Tilde’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. Eggsy hurried to continue, “I’ve thought about it, and it’s not— It won’t work to stay on.”

“Eggs— Is that what you want? Because, we can figure it out. We can make it work. I have superpowers, you know.”

“It’s not just the public-person part,” Eggsy said with a weak smile. “Kingsman, it’s… It’s not a schedulable thing, and after doing this -- and watching you do this -- I mean… I can’t be in Bolivia when I’m supposed to be here for whatever.”

Tilde looked concerned. “That’s… not really what I asked, though.”

“I know…” said Eggsy. “And I don’t know. I know I want this, us, to work, and I want that more than I want to be an agent.”

Tilde put away all the things she had in her lap and got to her feet. She hugged him. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and hiding his face against her neck. It wasn’t as much of a relief to tell her as he’d thought it would be, but at least he knew he knew he’d made the right decision.

  


* * *

  


Harry’s face appeared on Eggsy’s tablet screen. He looked incredibly tired, but he smiled. In the back Eggsy could spot some of his own baby pictures, which meant that Harry was in his mum’s guest room.

They had both stayed there their first night back in Europe. For Eggsy it had been a no-brainer to go there seeing how his own place was in ruins and everything with Kingsman’s name on it were as well. Harry had needed some convincing, suggesting hotels and Merlin’s place (Eggsy had been very close to yelling at him when he said that), not wanting to be a bother.

Apparently, he was still there and it made Eggsy grin.

“Hello, Harry,” he said. “You look horrible. Daisy working you too hard?”

“If I said it was your mother, would that be very inappropriate?”

Eggsy laughed. “Was that your version of a ‘yo mama’-joke? What’s she making you do?”

“Nothing remotely close to what I owe her in rent.”

“She loves having you,” said Eggsy, not knowing if it was completely true. He thought it was, but he had a feeling that to his mum, Harry would always, in part, be the man who lured Lee to his death.

“Be that as it may,” Harry said, “I must find a place of my own.”

“Not Merlin’s.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “The Statesmen are lending me the means to buy a new place.”

“Good. Speaking of, have you… have you been in touch with Merlin’s sister?”

Harry nodded. “I finally went to Stirling with his urn last weekend. She said she’d email me a picture of the stone once it’s up.”

“Could you forward it to me when you get it?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks… Listen, Harry,” Eggsy said, making a face, “I don’t know how to say this, but I won’t be coming back to Kingsman.”

Harry paused. “That’s not terribly surprising.”

“No.” Eggsy sighed. “Maybe not, but I still thought I should tell you.”

“I appreciate that,” said Harry. “Not that it’s much of Kingsman to be coming back to at the moment anyway.”

“I thought the Statesmen were—“

“They are,” Harry said quickly. “They are. I’m just not sure what they ought to do when they get here, so we’re pausing that for a while until I’ve figured that out.”

Eggsy frowned. “That’s… Harry, I’m sorry for leaving you this fucking mess.”

“Don’t be. I know this turns out to be ‘for life’ for a lot of us, but it was never really intended to be. It’s a job, not a cult.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

Eggsy smiled weakly. “Listen, if there’s anything. At all. Just call me, yeah?”

“I will.”

“I mean it. And I have Andrew’s and David’s phone numbers if you want them.”

Something lit up in Harry’s eyes at the mention of two of Kingsman’s tailors. It made Eggsy smile more, but his heart sank.

“That would be— Yes, please,” said Harry

“I’ll send over all the contact info I have on my phone as soon as we hang up.”

“Splendid,” said Harry. His eyes drifted off to somewhere off screen. “I think your mother’s calling me.”

“Better go down or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Harry smiled. “It was really good hearing from you, Eggsy.”

“You too… Tell mum and Daisy I love them, yeah?”

“I will.”

“And Harry…” Eggsy stared, but the words got stuck in his throat. So he just smiled and nodded once.

“You too, Eggsy,” said Harry. He smiled and nodded once too, before his face disappeared from the screen.

Eggsy breathed out. He stared straight ahead for a long time.

That was that, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swedish: "Tack, älskling."  
> English: "Thanks, sweetie."


	6. Chapter 6

Their steps echoed as they walked through the rooms. All the furniture were covered with white sheets, but the heavy curtains had been pulled up and the bleak winter sun was flowing in, reflecting in the chandeliers and the gold details on the walls. It felt spooky.

“What do you think?” asked Tilde.

Eggsy looked around the great dining room. They were in Haga Palace, north of Stockholm in the Royal National City Park. The palace, built in the early 19th century, was 1550 square meters laid out over 3 floors and 43 rooms and, if they wanted, their wedding gift from the Swedish government. As far as Eggsy could tell, a palace wasn’t on their registry list, but damn…

Even if he knew their stay at Stockholm Place was just temporary, he had never pictured this even in his wildest dreams. He had -- naively, he realised -- imagined something like their home in London, Harry’s old place, but bigger. Perhaps with a garden for J.B. to play in.

Not an entire palace of their own.

“A bit small, innit?”

Tilde’s laughed echoed between the walls and he smiled as well.

“Seriously,” said Eggsy still with his eyes wandering over the room, “they’re just… giving us a palace? Is it haunted or something?”

“I hope so.”

Eggsy looked at Tilde, grinning. “Yeah, by who?”

“Anyone, really. It’d be nice to have a ghost.”

“Between the two of us, don’t we have enough of those?”

“That’s why it’d be nice to have one that wasn’t ours.”

“You’re weird,” said Eggsy. “But I don’t know? Is this a nice palace? Is it even possible to turn down shit like this?”

“Of course it is,” Tilde said, as if turning down gifts worth millions was perfectly normal. “We can’t accept it if we’re not planning on living here and we can’t live here if it doesn’t feel right.”

“Is it cheesy if I say I don’t care where I live as long as you’re there with me?”

“Yes.”

“Is it better if I say that I don’t care where we live as long as it isn’t in your parents’ palace?”

Tilde laughed. “Yes.”

Eggsy grinned. He reached out and took her hand. “Then let’s go see if we can find a place to put the TV and after that, we can decide.”

  


* * *

  


Eggsy sat hunched over a textbook in basic political sciences, underlining things with a pen, in the small study in their private parts of Stockholm Palace. Spread out on the table were three other textbooks, a few printed articles, and his notebook.

Eggsy had no idea becoming a prince involved this much studying. He had never thought about going back to school – and if he had, Swedish history and social science hadn’t been on his list of choices – but it wasn’t half bad. It actually felt good to have something productive to do with his time to keep his mind off things.

He had just finished reading about how Prince Carl Adolf died, making Tilde’s grandfather the only remaining heir to the Swedish throne, and was about to start reading about Tilde’s grandfather’s mistress (and love of his life) who he didn’t got to marry, when Tilde came into the room.

“Går det bra?” she asked, stroking her hand over his back and looking over his shoulder at what he was reading at the moment.

He tilted his head back to look at her and received a kiss for his efforts.

“English, please,” Eggsy begged softly when their lips parted. “But it’s going fine.”

He got another kiss. “Need a study break?”

“That depends,” he said. “Is ‘study break’ code for sex or for wedding stuff?”

“Wedding stuff.”

“Then, no.”

Tilde rolled her eyes and pulled out the chair next to him.

He giggled and tossed the pen on the book. “What do you need?”

“Three things,” said Tilde. “First, before we schedule the meeting with the archbishop are there any English wedding traditions that you want us to incorporate in the ceremony?”

“Like…?”

Tilde shrugged. “I don’t know? Not seeing each other before the wedding, dad handing me over to you as if this is a business transaction between men, ‘you may kiss the bride’… that sort of thing.”

“You don’t kiss in the church?”

Tilde shook her head. “And the not-see-each-other is hard to do when the bride and groom walk in together.”

“What kind of PC social justice feminist bullshit is this?” said Eggsy, but didn’t manage to keep a straight face through the entire sentence. Tilde still poked him in the shoulder and he grinned even wider.

His gut reaction was that he didn’t care about any of it. He hadn’t exactly planned his wedding since he was six, or whatever it was girls in romcoms talked about. A wedding was a wedding. As long as Tilde was the one he was marrying, he didn’t think he cared about the rest, but… maybe he did? Since they had started talking about this, he had imagined standing at the altar, watching Tilde walk up to meet him in a great, white dress.

Getting to see Tilde through the entire day felt very tempting, though. The idea of being left somewhere without her felt extremely unappealing.

“Can I think about it?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“When are we meeting the archbishop?”

“Nothing decided yet, but next week?”

Eggsy nodded, and Tilde continued, “So, second thing. Do you think Daisy wants to be flower girl?”

“Are you kidding?” said Eggsy, smiling. “She’d be over the moon. Can she?”

“Of course she can.”

“I thought those spots were reserved for all the age appropriate princesses of Europe or something.”

Tilde giggled. “She’s your sister, of course she should be in the wedding.”

“That— Man, she’s going to be so happy!” said Eggsy, feeling about as happy about it himself. He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss. This was the type of wedding planning he enjoyed. Meeting bishops and going over guest lists with names like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made him almost scared of the dark. “What’s the third question?”

“Have you asked Harry yet?”

Eggsy blinked. “Asked him what?”

“To be your best man,” Tilde said. When Eggsy still just stared at her, she continued, “or did you think that spot was reserved for an ‘age appropriate prince’ as well?”

“No, well… yeah, sort of,” Eggsy admitted. “I decided long ago to just show up and smile. It’s easier and your dad won’t be mad at me for anything.”

“Eggsy…” she said, reaching for his hand. She took it in both of hers and kissed it without letting go. “It’s _our_ wedding. Yours and mine. At the end of it. The rest… to hell with it, that’s what we said, right?”

Eggsy nodded. “Right, but… I can’t ask him.”

“Why?”

“He’s still an active agent – even if there’s not much of an agency anymore – and… sure, to hell with all the rest, but you won’t be able to keep the press away from him.”

“Watch me.”

“What?”

“Watch me.” There was a fire in Tilde’s eyes and in her voice. “If you want Harry there, I’ll keep him off camera if that what it takes.”

“Babe, this isn’t a challenge.”

“It could be,” she said. “Don’t doubt my superpowers.”

Eggsy smiled. He loved her when she thought she was invincible. “Never.”

“So ask him,” Tilde said. “He’s a big boy, and I’m sure he can say ‘no’ if he doesn’t want to.”

“Fine, I’ll ask him if you want me to.”

“What do _you_ want? He’s not going to be my best man.”

Eggsy hesitated. It felt as if he had missed something. Something huge and important that left a gaping hole in his gut that he didn’t want to examine closer.

“Yeah, I’ll ask him.”

“Good,” said Tilde, giving him a quick kiss and getting up. Then she sat down again, slowly. She tilted her head, and after a moment she said, “Do you want me to call you?”

He nodded. “In a bit, yeah?”

“’Course,” she said, stroking his arm. “Text me?”

He nodded again. He got up to unplug his phone from the charger as soon as Tilde closed the door. He walked around the room twice, stopping at the window overlooking the Inner Courtyard. There was a constant stream of tourists walking through. His stomach turned at the sight of them and he turned his back to all of it.

 _Now_ he texted Tilde. Almost instantly, she called him.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pushed you with Harry like that.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine. It’s…”

He sighed. He could hear Tilde fiddling with something, most likely a pen. She had a hard time being still when she was on the phone. They stayed quiet, waiting for words to form. Eggsy’s eyes wandered over the room, over the modern furniture and the old tapestry. A small child was crying in the courtyard behind him. He wondered where Tilde was – probably in the kitchenette on the other side of the hall.

His eyes stopped at his stack of books on the desk. The ordinary mess in this extraordinary place.

“Roxy had me promise she’d be my best man if we ever married,” Eggsy finally said. All background noise seemed to fade. The lump in his throat was hard to swallow down. “I don’t think she really meant it, but…”

“Oh, Eggsy…” said Tilde quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Said she looked better in a tux than any of my other mates.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Eggsy choked on a laugh. “Suppose so. I never thought we’d ever do this or that I’d have a pick anyway.”

Tilde was quiet for a moment. “Don’t be upset, but… should we talk about the therapy thing again? There are other things than Harry to talk about, you know.”

“I… yeah,” said Eggsy, pinching the root of his nose. “Maybe. Yeah.”

“I’ll make some calls, okay? And then you can look at it?”

Eggsy nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t hear it. After a deep breath, he said, “Can you come back?”

It didn’t even take five seconds before Tilde opened the door. Two seconds later she hugged him. It took almost all Eggsy had to not start crying. He had no idea where this was suddenly coming from.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy was right, Daisy had been ecstatic at being asked to be a flower girl. He was glad he had asked their mother before they called. It would have been a nightmare to go back on that promise to Daisy. Afterwards, Tilde and Daisy had talked about lace and gummy bears (Eggsy had no idea how that combination even existed in his sister’s head) for over twenty minutes and if Eggsy hadn’t loved Tilde before then her utmost patience with his four-year-old sister would have sealed it for him. 

Now it was time for the other phone call that had come out of the conversation yesterday. They were back at Tilde’s flat on Strandvägen to box up the last things that they still kept there and Eggsy took the opportunity to shut himself in the bedroom. He sat on the floor in the empty room and stared at his tablet, unsure of why he was so nervous about this. Perhaps it was because he and Harry hadn’t spoken in almost three weeks now (not since he’d got a virtual tour of Harry’s new place) or perhaps because he knew Tilde was right and that Harry could say no. Or maybe he was afraid that Harry would feel coerced to say yes.

He exhaled loudly and called before he could change his mind. It took a while – Eggsy almost started to hope that Harry wouldn’t pick up – but finally, Harry’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hello, Eggsy.”

Eggsy smiled. “Hi, Harry. What’s up?”

He was surprised by how relieved he was to see Harry again, to get new proof that he was actually alive, because during his dark moments is felt too surreal to be true. (Though, honestly, most of his life was drifting into “surreal” territory.)

“Nothing much,” said Harry. “Reheating some dinner your mother dropped off day before yesterday.”

“What? Mum brought you food?”

“Yes.” Harry flipped the camera on his phone and showed Eggsy three food containers in the fridge. “She does that sometimes.”

“Why?”

Harry flipped his camera back again. “I think she’s under the impression that I work too much and don’t have time to do my own cooking.”

“Is it true?” asked Eggsy, frowning. “The work-bit, I mean?”

“Everything’s relative, but there has been quite a few hours at the office, so to speak, these last weeks.”

The guilt constantly humming in the back of Eggsy’s mind grew louder. “Did you get in touch with the tailors and cutters?”

“Most of them, yes,” said Harry. “Andrew wants to retire – I’m talking to Champagne about getting him a good pension. David, Robert, and George all say they’ll come back if we reopen. Matthew has found other employment.”

“Where?”

“Anderson & Sheppard.”

Eggsy nodded. “Good for him. Tell him if you see him, yeah?”

“Of course.”

“So you’ve decided to open the shop again, at least?”

“Yes. Gieves & Hawkes have offered us a temporary store.”

Eggsy frowned. “But they are such snobs.”

“I went to school with two of their cutters.”

“Point. Made.”

Harry laughed softly. “Perhaps, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“True,” said Eggsy with a sigh. “Honestly, it’s fucking amazing of them to offer.”

“Yes.” There was a soft ping in the background. “Hold on.”

Harry put down the phone and for almost a minute Eggsy got a good view of Harry’s kitchen ceiling before Harry propped up the phone against something. He sat down at the table, and soon he was in view again. He had brought the food from the microwave as well.

Eggsy shook his head with a smile. “Can’t believe mum cooks for you.”

“I was quite surprised myself,” said Harry. “It’s actually really good.”

“Can’t believe that either.”

Harry gave him a stern look, obviously telling him to be kind to his mother, which Eggsy decided to ignore. He was not going to bring up a childhood diet of cereals and baked beans.

“Do you want to try some?” Harry asked, point at the plate Eggsy couldn’t see.

“Nah, I’m good. We ate with Tilde’s parents tonight.”

“Should I ask?”

“Better not,” said Eggsy, making another face. “Actually, I called because I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mm?” said Harry around a mouthful of food.

“Would you been my best man? At the wedding.”

Harry blinked, a little taken aback by the question, and it took a while before he had managed to swallow the bite to be able to answer.

The delay made Eggsy blurt out, “I totally get it if you don’t, now with Kingsman starting to get off the ground again and all. Tilde says she’ll make sure you’ll stay off camera, but I have no idea how she’d manage that. There are cameras fucking everywhere. Even if she did, your name would be in the papers and I’m sure on Wiki-fucking-pedia by the end of it. So I understand if—“

“Eggsy.”

Eggsy audibly closed his mouth.

“I’m honoured you asked me,” said Harry. “I will think about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Brilliant!” Eggsy exhaled, a smile spreading across his face. “That’s… Thanks. You’ll come to the wedding either way, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Better brush up on those table manner, then,” said Eggsy. “It’s not like we’re expecting the Queen to come, but apparently she’s getting an invitation.”

“Your future father-in-law will be there regardless, I suppose, so the same applies.”

Eggsy sighed. “Last week, we – and by that I mean Tilde and her dad – had a heated discussion about who’d enter last to the wedding reception. Tilde won.”

“Should I take it the wedding planning isn’t running smoothly?”

“You really want to hear about it?”

“If I’m to be your best man, that comes pretty much standard, doesn’t it?”

“You _just_ said you’d think about it.”

“And I will, but I can’t see myself coming to any other decision.” Harry shrugged. “So, in the meantime, let’s proceed with all the unofficial duties of the title.”

Eggsy smiled, feeling a huge piece falling into place.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “So tonight at dinner…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Floor plan and pictures of Haga Palace](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S7Li-cLOf0GoFw42tTRxtx-Q_3RQfM8Z)
> 
> 2.  
> Swedish: "Går det bra?"  
> English: "How's it going?"
> 
> 3\. Both [Anderson & Sheppard](https://www.anderson-sheppard.co.uk/) and [Gieves & Hawkes](http://www.gievesandhawkes.com/) are actual tailor shops on Savile Row.


	7. Chapter 7

The alarm clock told Eggsy it was 4 a.m. He closed his eyes again and tried to decide if he really, _really_ needed to pee or if he could wait for the alarm to go off in two hours. After a few minutes he decided that it was better to get it over with so he could go back to sleep.

Carefully, as to not wake Tilde, he removed the covers and got up. It turned out completely unnecessary because when he threw a quick glance over his shoulder, he realised that Tilde wasn’t there. He went from drowsy to awake in a heartbeat and forgot about going to the bathroom.

“Tilde?” he said to the empty room, just in case he was too tired to see her. Unsurprisingly there was no answer. Yawning, he rubbed his face and turned on the bedside lamp to find his phone.

 _You OK? Where are you?_ he texted. On the other side of the bed, Tilde’s phone lit up.

Fuck.

He wrapped himself in his dressing gown and put on his slippers before he took Tilde’s phone (as well as his own) and left the bedroom.

The palace was spooky at night, lit only by the streetlights outside and the random emergency exit signs that made it very clear to Eggsy that this wasn’t actually a place where real people lived. Tonight, he wasn’t all that bothered by it. He opened every door he passed, even if he was pretty sure Tilde wouldn’t be in half of them before he checked.

In a small room named after one of the King’s aunts, almost directly underneath their bedroom, he found her. She sat curled up in an alcove overlooking Logården. She was startled when she heard him and even in the poor light he could see her blush.

“Hi…” he said softly. “Should I keep the light off?”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Four.” Since she didn’t answer his question, he left the lights turned off. “How long have you been up?”

“Since around midnight?” she said. “Couldn’t sleep.”

She slipped down from the alcove and Eggsy wrapped her in a hug.

“This been going on long?” he mumbled against her hair. He didn’t get a response, which he took as confirmation that it had been going on for a while. His heart sank. “Älskling… Talk to me. We can take it in Swedish if—”

“I’m fine,” she interrupted, trying out a smile. “Don’t worry.”

Eggsy put her mobile in her hand. “Call me.”

“It’s four in the morning.”

“That never stopped you before,” he said. He moved her hair behind her ear. “Call me. You can stay here, I’ll go back to the bedroom, just… call me, okay?”

Tilde didn’t reply. Instead she put away the phone and hugged him again. He wasn’t pleased with that answer, but if what she needed right now was a hug, then she would get it. So many nights when he had kept her company over the phone through her insomnia he had wanted to do nothing other than to hold her. Now, when he could hold her, he wanted her to talk to him like she had back then.

It just came to show that it was hard to have it all.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy sat on the bed, facing the door, waiting for Tilde to get home from the Finnish embassy. He was nervous, but seeing how Tilde had avoided talking to him both last night and this morning he knew he had to do something.

And something had been done.

Tilde came about ten minutes later than he had expected, already taking off her earrings to change for the night and clearly stressed by the delay. She stopped dead when she saw him.

“You’re not dressed,” she said, frowning, confused by the sight of him. Eggsy looked down at himself. He was wearing loose fitting jeans and his Jeremy Scott jacket, next to him on the bed was his white cap.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not naked,” he said when he looked up again.

Tilde’s frown deepened. “It’s not funny, Eggsy, we have to be at Drottningholm in two hours and with the traffic at this time—“

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Eggsy, getting up and taking his cap. “There’s been a change of plans. I’ve cancelled tonight.”

“You—What?”

“Cancelled. Tonight. Tomorrow. That thing with the woman whose name I can’t pronounce.”

“Tova Stjärnberg,” said Tilde out of tired habit.

“That’s the one. I cancelled that. Then I’ve moved the fittings and—“

“Eggsy!”

Eggsy shut up, smiling proudly at her. He put his cap backwards on her head.

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m dead serious.”

“What have you— Why?” Tilde’s voice was a louder than it had to be, but she wasn’t yelling. Yet. “We don’t have time to do this. We’re getting married in two months. There are things that need to— You don’t understand these things!”

“I understand just fine.” He reached out and took her hand. “It’s our wedding, but I have left you to do it almost by yourself. It’s not fair. I’m sorry. I won’t do that anymore.”

“But, but… you can’t just cancel things! Now I have to call—“

“Technically, _I_ didn’t cancel any of it,” said Eggsy, interrupting her. “Your dad did.”

Tilde blinked. “My dad?”

“Yep. I talked to him about last night—“

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Well, I did, and guess what, we’ve finally found something we agree on: you need to take better care of yourself.”

“I don’t need my dad and my fiancé to look after me.”

“Sure, but we’re going to London anyway because we have nothing scheduled for nine days.”

“You cancelled the archbishop?!”

“Yes.”

“That— Fan ta er!  I’m fine.”

“Babe…” Eggsy said softly. “You’re not. We’re going to London tonight. This isn’t a discussion. It’s just nine days. We can reschedule most of the things and the rest… screw it. Isn’t that like our wedding theme?”

“That’s not how this works!” Tilde screamed. She stomped her feet and Eggsy could see it all crumbling. He took a step closer and wrapped her in her arms. She stubbornly refused to hug him back.

“Babe,” he whispered. “Honey. Sweetheart. Please. Please… We’ll stay with my mum. We’ll watch crap telly and I’ll eat some proper beans. And we’ll have our shoes on all the time. Even in bed. I’ve packed your Louis Vuitton pumps.”

Tilde huffed out a laugh. Or maybe she sobbed. “I’m not doing that with Daisy sleeping in the next room.”

“Fine, I’ll wear the pumps.”

That time it was definitely a laugh he felt against his chest.

“Please?” he said, letting her go a little and raising her chin with his fingers so he could look her in the eyes. “For me if not for you? I worry about you.”

“My knight,” she muttered.

“Let me be that,” said Eggsy. “Let me help. You’ve done everything for too long. It’s my turn to protect you.”

Tilde sighed. “Fine. I guess it would be stupid to ruin your bonding experience with dad.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Tilde sat down on the bed, all energy seemed to have left her completely. She shook her head. “I can’t believe you cancelled tonight.”

“Honestly?” said Eggsy, taking back his cap with a smile. “Neither can I.”

  


* * *

  


Eggsy closed the door to the guest bedroom as quietly as he could to not wake Tilde as he slipped out to go downstairs. It was well after 9, but Eggsy had no intention of waking her when she was finally asleep.

They had landed in London shortly after midnight local time, leaving Tilde’s (and his!) security detail at Heathrow. The body guards were the most amusing and annoying part of his new life, Eggsy had found. It was a bit like being babysat by a three year old, because he couldn’t imagine a situation where their training was better than his.

“Good morning, Eggsy,” said Michelle as he came into the kitchen.

Eggsy walked straight up to her and hugged her.

“Morning, mum,” he mumbled and refused to let go for a long time. “Sorry to just… Thanks for having us.”

“There’s always a room for you here,” said Michelle. “Both of you.”

Eggsy pulled out a chair at the small kitchen island and sat down. “Don’t you have work today? I don’t want to keep you from—“

“Switched shifts with Jo,” she said, putting the kettle on. “Told her my boy was bringing his girl over for the first time in forever and she was more than willing to trade after telling me to give you a ringing ear for not visiting more often.” After a short pause she added, “Don’t worry, I won’t do that.”

“Does Jo know who my girl is?” asked Eggsy, amused.

“God, no,” said Michelle. “That woman wouldn’t recognise Prince William if he stepped into the store. Harry, maybe.”

Eggsy laughed. “I’d love to see either of them visiting any WHSmith at all.”

“If you’re turning posh on me now…” Michelle held up a warning finger, but her eyes smiled.

“Never.”

She put a mug of tea in front of him and a tray for the bag, then she went on taking out things for breakfast. Eggsy watched her, feeling as if he at least deserved a bit of a telling off for not visiting more often. Or at least calling. They hadn’t always had the best relationship – sometimes he wondered if they would have had any at all if Daisy hadn’t been born – but lately, their lack of contact was on him. He had talked more with Harry than with his mum since leaving for Sweden.

“Now,” said Michelle as Eggsy buttered his first toast, “care to tell me why I have a princess sleeping in my guest room with no notice?”

Eggsy put some extra focus on the toast.

“She’s been stressed lately,” he said, weighing his words. “I thought a change of environment would do her good.”

“Sweetheart, that’s normal,” said Michelle. “Before marrying your dad, I was a mess for weeks and I only had your grandparents and a few friends coming. Can’t imagine what it’s like to have an entire country on the guest list.”

Eggsy shook his head. “It’s not that. She’s… She’s not sleeping. It was like this when we first met, just after the V-day shit. I don’t know what to do, mum. I don’t know how to take care of her over there. Here it was easy – easier, at least.”

Michelle watched him for a long time. “I have no idea how you turned out this good.”

Eggsy smiled, almost embarrassed, unsure on how to respond so he didn’t. Statements like that made him uncomfortable, because they brought up everything about their relationship that he wanted to leave in the past. They were still getting to know each other in a post-Dean world and it all seemed too fragile to go into anything of that yet.

“Your turn,” said Eggsy, clearing his throat. “Do I need to have a ‘if you hurt my mum I’ll kill you’ talk with Harry?”

Michelle started laughing. “Eat your toast and stop talking nonsense.”

Eggsy grinned and did as he was told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swedish: "Älskling…"  
> English: "Honey..."
> 
> Swedish: "Fan ta er!"  
> English: "Damn both of you!"


	8. Chapter 8

Eggsy parked the car a few streets away. They had borrowed his mum’s red Toyota to get to Savile Row where they had decided to meet up with Harry. Tilde was on her way out of the car when she noticed that Eggsy wasn’t. She closed the door again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I just remembered that the last time I was here I pointed a gun at Merlin,” said Eggsy after a short pause. It was a white lie. He had thought about little else since Harry had suggested they’d meet up in the temporary shop further down Savile Row, but it was one of the reasons he hesitated.

He let go of the steering wheel, looking at Tilde with a rueful smile. “It was the same night I met your mum and dad for the first time.”

“God…” Tilde whispered. She sat back in the seat, looking out the window shield as if that night played like a movie in front of her eyes as well.

The second reason Eggsy felt unable to get out of the car was the realisation that this was real. He was actually going to get to introduce Tilde to Harry. He had thought about what that would be like almost since the moment he and Tilde became serious. What he’d say. Where they’d be. He had never been nervous about if they’d like each other or not, because he knew they would. Now when it – though a goddamn miracle – suddenly was a reality, he was really scared that they wouldn’t. They’d both be polite enough about it for his sake, he knew that, but… what if they wouldn’t like each other? What if two of the most important people in his life wouldn’t get along?

So they stayed in the car for a bit longer until Tilde said that Harry must be waiting for them already.

They walked along the familiar streets, hand-in-hand, and Eggsy did his best to not feel terrible about being back here. Not only did he stand out like a sore thumb in his “civilian clothes”, walking next to Tilde in her dark grey dress suit, but he felt like a traitor sneaking back to the scene of the crime.

Nearing the spot where the old shop had once stood, Eggsy slowed down his pace. It was ridiculous, because they would get there eventually, but it was as if something was pulling him backwards. He didn’t want to see this place again and he silently cursed himself for not having parked at the other end of the road. 

When they actually reached No 11 Savile Row, Eggsy took a deep breath and deliberately turned to look at the gaping hole that once had been Kingsman Tailor Shop. He squeezed Tilde’s hand as hard as he dared. The space was taped off and decorated with bright warning signs and orders to keep away. Some of the rubble had clearly been moved and the neighbouring houses secured, but not much else seemed to have been changed since Eggsy’s last visit.

It was a lifetime ago, but the things he’d tried to grasp that night in the rain were the same things he struggled to understand now. He really, really wished he could kill Charlie again, and that impulse scared him.

“Come,” he said, already turning and walking away. “Let’s go.”

Tilde followed without a word, squeezing his hand. Eggsy walked fast, wanting to put as much distance between himself and No 11 as possible, so he was surprised when Tilde suddenly stopped and forced him to do the same.

“We’re here,” said Tilde, pointing at the shop she had stopped in front of when he gave her a questioning look. “This is it.”

They both paused, taking it in. The shop window was small, but it said Kingsman in golden letters and displayed a perfectly fine suit. Eggsy wondered who had supplied it, since there was no way any of the tailors could have had time to make one yet.

He exhaled, bracing himself, and they walked in.

A small bell announced them, but other than that, nothing looked like the old Kingsman. Where the old shop had been dark and musky, with dead animals and a very Old Boys’ Club feel this place was white, sterile, and screamed modern minimalism. Eggsy hated it.

“Welcome,” said a familiar voice.

Eggsy pushed down all his feelings about the décor, turning around with a smile to greet Harry who stepped onto the shop floor. He wore an impeccable suit, well-shined shoes and his one eyed glasses. The sight made the knot in Eggsy’s chest loosen up a little.

“Harry,” he said, wasting no time, and hugged him.

“Hello there, Eggsy,” said Harry as he hugged him back. “Didn’t expect to have you back on the island until after the wedding.”

“Even royalty need vacations,” Eggsy said, grinning, as he let go. He moved to the side and made an almost shy gesture towards Tilde who stood next to him. “Harry, this is Tilde. Tilde, this is Harry.”

“I can’t believe I get to finally meet you, Mr Hart,” said Tilde as she extended her hand. “It’s an honour. Eggsy’s told me so much about you.”

“The honour is mine, Your Highness,” said Harry, taking her hand and bowing his head.

“Anyone who calls Eggsy ‘Eggsy’ can call me Tilde.”

“That seems like a fair rule. You can call me Harry.”

Tilde nodded. Eggsy looked between them, almost more nervous now than he had been earlier, because he had no idea where to go from here. In no scenario he had ever played out had this meeting taken place in an unfamiliar shop, Tilde wearing an engagement ring and Harry being the only surviving Kingsman agent.

To not let the silence drag out for too long, he turned to Harry again.

“So, you’re doing front office now?” he asked.

“Front office, back office.” Harry shrugged. “All the offices, really, but George is in the cutting room and I’m pretty sure David is on the phone making our suppliers cry, so I’m not sailing alone.”

“That’s good,” said Eggsy. “No one would pick you as a tailor.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “I think I remember a young lad who was pretty convinced, once.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Eggsy, grinning. “That was—“

Before he had a chance to defend his honour, a man Harry’s age, with less hair but a bigger smile came out into the shop, two mobile phones in his right hand.

“I thought I heard customers,” the man said.

“David!” said Eggsy, giving him almost as big a hug as he had Harry. “Great to see you!”

“You too,” said David. “Harry here says you’re getting married.”

“Like you don’t read the gossip magz.”

“And imagine my surprise when you pop up there, alive and engaged,” David said. He turned to Tilde. He gave her a hug as well. “It’s really good to see you as well.”

Tilde smiled. “You too.”

“So, are we here for a fitting for The Big Day?” David asked, turning back to Eggsy.

“Oh, man,” Eggsy said, laughing. “I’m sorry. That would have been amazing! No, I’m wearing dad’s old uniform. Didn’t know when this place was going to be up for business, and decisions had to be made.”

“Understand completely, but I had to ask, didn’t I?” David eyed Harry up and down. “I’ll settle with dressing this one. What’s the risk of having people shot at him during the ceremony?”

“Low, I hope.”

“Good, because we won’t be making those suits for a while.” He sighed. “Bloody suppliers making my hair turn grey.”

“They are still at that?” asked Harry, frowning. “Do you want me to call them?”

“I know a lot of things will be different now, but the ‘no agents near the fabric’-rule still stands,” said David, giving him a look. “Just make sure to get the old shop back. George and I will do the rest. Okay?”

Harry rolled his eyes.

One of David’s phones started to ring ( _Gotta Catch 'Em All_ ). He sighed again.

“I’m sorry, I got to…” he said apologetically to Eggsy and Tilde. “Do you have time for a pint or something before you two leave?”

“Yes.”

“Definitely.”

With a smile and a wave, David disappeared into the back again.

“That’s brave of you,” said Harry. “As far as I can remember, David can outdrink a horse.”

“I’m working class and Tilde’s a Viking, we eat English upper class boys for breakfast,” Eggsy said, winking at Tilde who nodded in agreement. When Tilde had lived in London they had tried this theory on David quite often. “Now, are you going to give us a tour of this place or not?”

“Yes, of course.” Harry inclined his head. “If you follow me, Your Highness.”

Eggsy rolled his eyes when he realised he was addressing him and not Tilde, but followed Harry through the shop and into the back. Meeting David had put him at ease, and getting a hug and exchanging a few words with George in the cutting room only improved his mood. It felt good seeing them again. They weren’t agents, but they had been colleagues nonetheless and without them, the expensive front would be worth nothing and their armour wouldn’t have been quite as impressive. It was a relief to see that there were some parts of the old Kingsman left, after all.

They ended the tour in Harry’s office. It was a cluttered mess, very far from the orange office back in his old house. Eggsy wondered if he could get anything at all done in here, and a little bit of his discomfort from before came back.

“I have most things at home,” said Harry as he pulled out a blueprint and spread it across a desk, “but the plans for the new shop felt safe enough to have here.”

“Are you sure you should show us these?” Eggsy said, even as he leaned over to study them. “I’m a civilian now, you know.”

“I think you might be the first agent to retire while you still had the use of all your senses and limbs in over fifty years,” said Harry, waving his hand. “I have no idea what the protocol is.”

“Want me to turn in my glasses?” asked Eggsy with grin.

Harry almost rolled his eye at him. Almost.

They leaned over the blueprint and Harry started to point out different details. It looked decent enough, not that carpeting or structural engineering were anything Eggsy had picked up during his time at Kingsman. For the most part, Harry seemed to be reconstructing the old shop, judging by the layouts and concept boards.

“If there’s anything we can help with regarding this bit,” said Tilde, studying one of the concept boards with lots of plaid and animal trophies on, “don’t hesitate to ask.”

Both Eggsy and Harry looked up at her.

“Yeah?” said Eggsy, the idea of being even the smallest part of this making his chest flutter.

“Yeah,” she said, meeting his eyes with a smile. “Furniture, paintings, anything. I’m not sure we’re able to write off anything for the… the…”

“Side business,” Harry supplied.

“Thank you. The side business. But no one would bat an eye if we made personal donations to restore the shop. We’re supposed to have met there, after all.”

Eggsy’s smile grew and he reached for her hand. “Thank you.”

For some reason that made her blush.

“I know this means a lot to you,” she said quietly. “It’s the least we can do.”

“We’ll name one of the fitting rooms after you,” said Harry. “’Prince Gary’s Fitting Room.’”

Eggsy laughed. “Oh no, you wouldn’t bloody dare!”

Harry smirked, muttering something about how they would see about that, and pulled out another blueprint showing the upper floor.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy jerked awake when his phone started ringing on his bedside table. It took a second for him to realise what was happening and that he was in his mum’s guest room, but it was only when he saw Tilde’s name on the screen that he noticed that she wasn’t sleeping next to him.

“Hi,” he mumbled when he answered, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Where are you?”

“Downstairs,” said Tilde, almost whispering. “Sorry I woke you.”

“It’s fine… You know it is.” Eggsy turned on the lamp to be able to see the clock on the wall as he started to get out of bed. It was 01:07. “Do you want me to come down?”

“No, just… you know.”

“Yeah,” he said, but he stayed with his feet already on the floor. He could hear Tilde running the tap, how she put on the kettle. He closed his eyes, listening to her opening cupboard after cupboard.

“The one to the far left,” Eggsy said, half-smiling. “The honey is probably still standing on the countertop.”

Tilde hummed as she found the tea and the honey. There was another stretch of silence. Eggsy was pretty sure she had put down the phone entirely to finish the tea judging by the change in the sound. He itched to go down to her.

“Did something happen at the shop today?” Eggsy finally asked when he heard her pick up the mobile again. “Did Harry say something or…?”

“No. No… Harry didn’t—“ Tilde sighed. “What are we doing, Eggsy?”

“W—what? Babe?”

“You’re giving up your entire life for me,” said Tilde, barely more than a whisper. “I can’t… I can’t ask you to do that.”

Eggsy waited, his heart in his throat, but Tilde didn’t say anything else.

“I’m coming downstairs,” he said, grabbing a t-shirt as he got out of bed. With it in one hand and the phone still pressed to his ear he took the steps of the stairs two at the time. He hung up when he stepped into the kitchen.

Tilde stood behind the kitchen island in her pyjamas, her hair in a messy knot, and her eyes red. Eggsy couldn’t tell if it was from lack of sleep or from crying. Neither was a very good option. He pulled the t-shirt over his head and sat down on the opposite side from Tilde. He put his phone next to hers.

For a long time, all that was heard in the kitchen was the humming coming from the fridge. Tilde kept her eyes firmly on her tea, but Eggsy looked at her. She reminded him of the first times she had spent the night with him and Valentine’s ghost had haunted every room of Harry’s house, before it had become their home, when everything had been new and raw, and all they had been were shreds and broken pieces. Before they had put words to things. Before they had found ways to talk about any of it with each other.

“I’m not giving up my life, I quit my job,” Eggsy finally said when Tilde didn’t start. It made Tilde meet his eyes. “I know you have a skewed idea of what a job is, but the rest of us… we can quit. My life is still around. And it’s not like I haven’t started over before. When I joined the marines. When I left the marines. When I joined Kingsman. Now this.”

“But you don’t know what this is.”

“No, but I’m starting to get a feel for it,” Eggsy said, trying a smile. “And so what? You think I knew what I was getting myself into when I joined Kingsman? Because I didn’t.”

Tilde smiled briefly at that.

“Harry’s not the only one who’s a big boy, I can make my own decisions too. I left the marines to please mum. I joined Kingsman because I didn’t have that many other alternatives. This… You… I picked that. It’s my choice. I wasn’t told to. I wasn’t tricked. I didn’t lack options. I don’t do this out of necessity. I chose this. I chose _you_.”

“Eggsy, I…”

Eggsy reached out and took her hand. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Talk to me. Please?”

“I’m the last one,” she whispered, meeting his eyes again. Hers were filled with tears. “There’s no one else, and I can’t ask you to give up Kingsman when I... when I…”

Eggsy inhaled through his nose. He had promised himself to never bring this up, because it didn’t matter. It was a hypothetical, but he had been pretty sure about what the result would have been if it had been tested ever since he had read about her grandfather giving up the love of his life when his older brother died heirless. It was strange getting it confirmed, but it didn’t hurt.

“Is this to do with you having picked your titles over me if your dad had made you choose?” he asked.

Tilde’s tears spilled over as she nodded. “I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have to—” Eggsy started. “I’m not mad, I won’t leave.”

“I’m the last one,” Tilde whispered again, her voice breaking and disappearing completely.

“Luckily, it turned out I wasn’t. Babe…” Eggsy got to his feet and walked around the kitchen island. He hugged her and she almost disappeared in his arms, crying against his shoulder. “It’s okay. I get it – or you know I don’t, but I do. We’ll just have to make sure you’re not the last one.”

Tilde nodded. Eggsy stood there, his head resting against hers, holding her, stroking her back. He felt surprisingly calm, but as he had said, he had made his choice. Tonight, it felt more right than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [A quick family tree over how I imagine Tilde's ancestry](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Jh_NWVwMWSGpo4lHF4BnYYdkrbhjagDD)
> 
> 2\. [A more detailed description](http://solrosan.tumblr.com/post/170953392512/making-tilde-a-bernadotte) on how to make Tilde fit into the current Swedish royal dynasty, since it's [canon that she's a Bernadotte.](http://solrosan.tumblr.com/post/170842833917/great-coat-of-arms-of-sweden)


	9. Chapter 9

Eggsy watched Tilde as she painted her toenails with Daisy’s neon purple nail polish in front of Breakfast on BBC1 the next morning. Last night’s troubles seemed long gone, but he knew she was good at shutting things off and pretending nothing was wrong.

After they had finally gone to bed, Eggsy had been awake for hours, thinking, as Tilde slept against his chest. There was something in what Tilde had said that made him uneasy. Actually, it was something _he_ had said, but still. Eggsy didn’t for a second doubt that she loved him just as much as he loved her and the fact that she would give that up for her sense of duty and her loyalty to tradition made him worried what else she could end up agreeing to against her will for a people who more and more looked at the institution she represented as undemocratic.

So he had to ask.

“Do you want kids?”

Tilde looked confused. “Now?”

“At all,” he said, putting away the leftovers of his breakfast on the coffee table. “Do you really want kids or do you think that’s part of the job description or something?”

“No?”

“I mean, I always thought having kids was part of the deal here, but I want kids and it’s not my body and we haven’t discussed this _at all._ ”

Tilde looked at him as if he wasn’t making any sense. “What are you on about?”

“What you said last night, I don’t think I really thought any of that was real before,” said Eggsy, feeling incredibly stupid admitting that. “The asking your dad, the government bit, the having to be Lutheran thing… I suppose I thought it was praxis.”

“No, that’s the constitution,” said Tilde with an amused smile. “Me shutting up about politics is praxis.”

“It’s Medieval, is what it is.”

“More like… 1980’s?” said Tilde, screwing the cap back on the nail polish. “Dad would never have said no, and the government wouldn’t have dared to. So it’s practically moot.”

“But if they had, you would have gone with it.”

“I love you,” she said, looking incredibly guilty. “I really do.”

“I know, babe, that’s not the point I’m trying to make,” said Eggsy. He wet his lips. “I chose this life because I love you and you make it worth it, but did you ever do that? Do you want any of this, or do you do it because you think you have to? Like, I thought I lacked options growing up, but you’ve been groomed to take over the family business since you—”

Tilde interrupted him by putting her hand on his knee. “Eggsy, I grew up in a palace with parents who love me, don’t feel bad for me.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I made the choice – I was eight, but I still made it.”

Eggsy squeezed her hand back, picturing eight-year-old Tilde with pony tails and her chin up, deciding that she would be the next Queen of Sweden. Eight-year-old Eggsy had mostly thought about what they would do during break. He couldn’t imagine entrusting his eight-year-old self with any major decisions for the future, but in Tilde’s case that didn’t feel completely unrealistic.

Just crazy.

“Are you worried our children will be stuck doing something they don’t want to?” asked Tilde tentatively after a while. “Because I won’t force them to do this.”

Eggsy let out a soft laugh. “I hadn’t thought that far. I’m mostly worried about you.”

“Don’t be,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not doing this under duress. And I don’t want children because of the heir-thing. I want them because I want them.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Eggsy leaned forward and kissed her. He felt much more at ease now, but he couldn’t help wondering what other important discussions they might have forgotten to have in their rush to play chicken race with her parents.

  


* * *

  


Eggsy rested his head against the window, watching London becoming smaller and smaller as the plane took off from Heathrow. Next to him, Tilde was trying to connect her tablet to the WiFi to check her long-ignored work email.

It had been a good nine days, but even if it felt like Eggsy had left a part of him down on the ground he had to admit that Tilde wasn’t the only one starting to feel a bit stressed about everything they had left behind in Stockholm. Not to mention that nine days seemed to be close to the upper limit of how long he could live with his mum and still keep a good relationship.

“What do you say, is ‘Sammanställning av veckans mediabevakning’ something we feel up to?” asked Tilde when she had managed to open her inbox.

Eggsy tore his eyes from the ground. He made a face. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Frida has sent a compilation of the week’s gossip.”

“How big’s the attachment?”

Tilde checked and sighed. “1.9 GB.”

“I hate Frida a little,” muttered Eggsy. “Yeah, go for it.”

The Court’s press and communications director had typed up short email to go along with the attachment. It was in Swedish, and Tilde waited to open the attachment until Eggsy had worked his way through the greeting and overall conclusion that there was nothing controversial or disastrous written in the tabloids as a result of their impromptu trip. Most of them seemed to have taken this as an opportunity to really dive into Eggsy’s past, but since his criminal record had been discovered around Christmas already, there was nothing new for them to really uncover.

Eggsy nodded when he was done and they held their breath as Tilde opened the attachment.

It was a PDF-file with tabloids and gossip magazine covers. Most of them in Swedish, but some of them in Danish, German, and English. All of them – except the English ones – had the headlines translated to English in the margins. Eggsy took back his comment about Frida, because he knew she had done that for his sake.

“I love this picture of you,” said Tilde, stopping at a cover from Svensk Damtidning where they had used a press photo of Eggsy wearing a Kingsman suit accompanied with a catchy headline about them going on a romantic trip to where they had first met.

“We should have David make the suit I’m supposed to have made you,” said Eggsy. “These people would eat that with a spoon.”

Tilde smiled. “Right? That would be amazing.”

Most of the headlines were the same. Crown princess Tilde and her fiancé went to London to visit the store where they had begun their journey together and other sappy things. One claimed this-or-that person they had cancelled on was outraged, but Frida had assured them in the email that that wasn’t true.

Then came a British magazine with a small photo of the two of them walking into Michelle’s bookstore and another with them walking out.

“How did they get those pictures?” said Eggsy, pointing at the screen.

“Telephoto lens, probably,” Tilde said, tilting her head. “Horrible invention.”

“But how did I miss it?” Eggsy kept staring at the photo. “I’m a terrible spy.”

Tilde kissed his cheek. “You’re not Spiderman.”

“No, but…”

“There’s no escaping, just accepting,” said Tilde. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you start obsessing over it.”

“But my mum works there!”

Tilde put away the tablet. They had talked about the press before at length, with and without Frida, but they had both relaxed when Eggsy had made the decision to step down from Kingsman. This was something Eggsy hadn’t really thought about though, because somehow the life had lived before and the life he was about to enter were so far apart that he could imagine an overlap.

“They have known that since the day we announced the engagement,” said Tilde. “They know where she lives, they know where Daisy goes to daycare. They know all of it.”

Eggsy went pale. “Fuck…”

“They’ll be okay,” said Tilde. “The press can be nasty, but they are rarely violent, and after the wedding it will all blow over. I’m a bit surprised that Dean hasn’t made a comment yet, though.”

“He has nothing to do with this! Why would he—“

Tilde shut him up with a pointed look. Eggsy made a small, frustrated sound, realising just how naïve he sounded. It _was_ surprising that Dean hadn’t talked to the press – if not on his own initiative, someone surely would have contacted him considering what the focus of most stories seemed to have been. Talking to the tabloids was good money, if you were to believe the rumours, and Dean was really one to take every opportunity of a high pay-off, low-effort situation.

Eggsy went back to look out the window with a sour taste in his mouth. He wondered if it was out of line to ask his best man to pay his old stepdad a short visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.  
> Swedish: ‘Sammanställning av veckans mediabevakning’  
> English: ’Compilation of the week’s media coverage’
> 
> 2\. The Swedish Act of Succession from 1810 (amended in 1938 and 1980) states that only children born in wedlock may inherit the Throne, they have to be descendants of our current King (an exception was made for his uncle), they shall belong to and profess the "pure evangelical faith" as defined in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession and the Uppsala Meeting of 1591 (i.e. by implication the Church of Sweden), they have to have been raised in Sweden, they have to receive consent (upon application of the Monarch) from the Government of Sweden before they marry, and they are prevented to become the monarch of another country (by election or marriage) without the consent of the Government of Sweden.
> 
> The change in 1980 made the line of succession gender neutral. I have some theories about how this probably happen earlier in this verse, but I will refrain from bore you with that here.
> 
> Five Swedish princes have lost their place in the line of succession after marrying women the sitting monarch didn’t approve of. Three of them were uncles to our current King.


	10. Chapter 10

Eggsy was nervous. It felt odd waiting for a therapist to come to him rather than the other way around. Not that he had much experience with that either, but sitting in one of the many studies in the palace, waiting for a summoned professional felt wrong. It felt… it felt like the thing posh people with too much money did and it made him uncomfortable being lumped into that group. Tilde had offered to be with him for this first session, but he had declined. He had no idea how this would go and since he had stormed out of his last and only previous session he didn’t want her there.

When they got back to Stockholm they had both agreed to make some room for therapy in the following weeks, because it had been clear during the time away that they really needed to set aside that time. Tilde had even mentioned that maybe, _maybe_ , she should ask to go back on zopiclone if she didn’t get the insomnia under control. Eggsy thought it was a brilliant idea. 

Eggsy jumped up when the door opened. The man that came in was about his own age, perhaps a bit older, and Eggsy felt even more uncomfortable. He exhaled slowly, he could do this. He would do this. He would not walk out this time.

“Hej,” said the therapist and held out his hand. “Jacob Stål.”

“Gary Unwin.”

“Är det fortfarande ‘du’ och ‘Gary’ eller är det ‘Ni’ och ‘Ers Höghet’?”

It took a moment for Eggsy to understand that he was asked how he wanted to be addressed – Jacob had a weird accent. 

“Gary’s fine,” he finally said.

“Oh, right, sorry,” said Jacob, looking a bit sheepish. “Do you prefer to do this in English?”

“Depends... Is it important that I talk?”

Jacob held up his fingers, measuring about a centimetre between his thumb and index finger. “A bit.”

“Then English it is.”

“Right-o,” said Jacob, smiling and showing with his hand that Eggsy should sit down. “It feels odd to offer you to sit in your own home, but please, sit.”

“It’s not my home,” said Eggsy instinctively, but sat down anyway. “I just live here.”

Jacob sat down as well. “Well, then. Let’s start there, tell me where home is...”

  


* * *

  


Haga Palace was a mess. Every room was in some state of disarray and smelled of paint, but the renovations were coming along nicely. It wouldn’t be possible for them to move in straight after the wedding, but everyone seemed cautiously optimistic that the Crown princess couple would be able to spend their first Christmas together there.

As Eggsy and Tilde walked through the rooms, Eggsy was blown away by the transformation. The entire place seemed bright and welcoming, with sun shining in through the large windows and a lot of the darker colours and details being toned down. As someone who had once stopped Versailles from being vandalised, Eggsy had felt slightly uncomfortable picking paint samples for repainting an early 19th century palace, but as his parents-in-law kept telling him, Haga Palace had been a family home for generations before being sold to the government and now that it was going to be a family home again it needed to be redone. When he started to see the results, Eggsy could almost understand that.

“Here?” Eggsy suggested as he stood in front of the huge doors in the great drawing room, leading out on the first floor balcony.

Tilde looked around. This room was, like all the others, a TV crew away from being a set on _Dexter_.

“As good as any.”

“Romantic.”

Tilde giggled. “It’s our middle name.”

He and Tilde had said that they were here to look at the progress – and it was true – but there was a second purpose to their visit. At the wedding, they would use traditional vows, because a monarchy is nothing without its traditions and because they were already anglofying the ceremony far more than the court’s PR team was comfortable with. That didn’t mean they couldn’t write their own vows, or share them with each other, and that’s what they were going to do now. In the privacy of what would become their home, they could be themselves, they could be honest – not like in the wedding speech Eggsy was struggling with where everything had to be either paraphrases, omissions of truths, or outright lies.

“Can I go first?” Eggsy asked as they stood facing each other, framed by the door.

Tilde nodded. “Sure.”

Eggsy took both of Tilde’s hands.

“So I can’t cheat and look at my notes,” he said.

Tilde smiled and rolled her eyes at him. It made him grin and he realised that this was exactly how he wanted this to be. Just the two of them away from the world’s watching eyes, like it had been from the start. 

“I know we joke about me being your knight in shining armour,” he began, “because of how we met and how I saved you from a dragon’s den. We both know that this isn’t that kind of fairy tale and that the princess saved the knight just as much, if not more.

“I was broken when we met that first time in the dragon’s den, held together by anger and adrenaline, and when the adrenaline went away, the anger took over because the grief was too much to deal with. You stilled the anger, you helped me fall apart and to build myself up again. You gave me new things to keep the pieces together with. Love. Respect. Self-respect. And now, though still a bit chipped at the edges, I hold together. I’m whole again, thanks to you.

“Our first kiss didn’t instantly transform me into a prince, but I’ve been told that true nobility lies in being superior to your former self, and I’m trying. Every day. First I did it for me, then for you. Now for us. And I can’t wait for the ‘happily ever after’ part of our fairy tale, because we both deserve it.”

“Jag älskar dig,” he said quietly, feeling almost out of breath after having made it through the end of his vows without tripping up even once.

“I love you too,” Tilde mouthed, squeezing his hands. ”Damn, mine are going to sound so stupid now.”

“Not a chance. Why did you think I wanted to go first?”

Tilde laughed. “You sneaky little….”

“Is this really how you want to start?”

Tilde smiled at him, holding his gaze for a long time. Then she took a moment to look down at their hands, before meeting his eyes again.

“In _Notting Hill_ Julia Roberts’ character says that she’s just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her,” she said. “I didn’t understand what she meant by that until recently. You showed me that it’s not only possible for me to be loved for who I am, but that it’s all right to just be me. Just a girl. Not a title. 

“I never stood before you, asking you to love the girl and not the princess. You already did that long before I figured out that it was something I could even ask for. You make me feel safe, in myself and in the world. With you, I can both be Tilde and the Crown princess.

“You were my hero when we met and you still are, but now you’re also my friend, my lover, and my partner. You’re the kindest, most self-sacrificing, loyal person I have met and I will make it my life goal to make you see that too. I love you, and I’m not sure I’d be here without you.”

When she reached the end, her voice was almost gone and she blinked frenetically to keep tears from falling. Eggsy, not completely dried eyed either, reached out a hand and wiped the tears from under her eyes. Tilde leaned into his touch.

“See, I told you it was good I took waterproof mascara today,” she said, her voice still a bit shaky.

Eggsy nodded. He rested his forehead against hers. They might not be the Crown Princess Couple yet, but this would be the date they celebrated their anniversary for years to come, because in this moment, they became husband and wife.

The wedding itself would just be for show.

  


* * *

  


On one of the gold painted 18th century door in the Northern row of Stockholm Palace, someone had taped a note with “WAR ROOM” scribbled on it with a green marker. Eggsy had to look twice before his brain accepted the aesthetics of it. Up until they went to London, the room on the other side had been referred to as simply the “Wedding Room”, and was where the project group for planning the wedding worked.

It was usually quite crowded and busy, but when Eggsy came in this afternoon there was only one man there.

“Eggsy,” said Oscar, the project manager, looking up from his laptop with a bright smile. “To what do I owe the disruption? Any other British legend you’re going to tell me will make an appearance? Rowling promised to do a reading?”

Eggsy laughed. Oscar had had a minor stroke when Elton John had called to say that he’d love to come and play both at the ceremony and at the dinner afterwards. 

“Not this time. Actually, I’m here about J.B.”

Oscar pointed at the door. “Get out.”

Eggsy pulled out the chair next to Oscar and sat down, grinning. Having J.B. be a part of the ceremony had become a running gag between them ever since Oscar had made the fatal mistake of giving Eggsy a catalogue with upscale pet accessories in preparation of the documentary they’d done in December.

Oscar knew Tilde from uni and could call himself Count Oscar Wrede if he wanted to. He usually worked with major sporting events, but Tilde had wanted someone she knew in charge of the wedding and he had accepted on the spot. Eggsy liked him, he was the only person so far who called him by his nickname on the basis of knowing Tilde by her first name. (Their name rule went both ways.)

“I need a favour,” said Eggsy. “Or two.”

Oscar frowned. “Big ones or small ones?”

“One of each?”

“Start with the big one,” said Oscar. “I suppose that one will need… I don’t know, time set aside?”

“Maybe.” Eggsy made a small face. This was a little bit embarrassing. “Can you translate my wedding speech?”

“You know you can do it in English,” said Oscar. “Half the people on your guest list don’t even know Swedish. All of them know English, I’ve checked.”

“I know, but… I want to do it in Swedish for Tilde since everything else will be in English for me.”

“That’s disturbingly romantic,” Oscar said, giving him a huge smile. “But don’t you want an interpreter or something to do that? Someone who’s actually good at this?”

“Translator.”

“See! Point made!”

“Please?” Eggsy said. “I trust you. You’re like the only person I know who both know Swedish and who I’d want to have a beer with. Except Tilde, and I can’t ask her…”

“Now that’s really sad, instead,” said Oscar. “But of course I’ll help you. Send me a link to a google docs or something when you’re done.”

“Great! Thank you.”

Then, from his pocket, Eggsy pulled out a red velvet box. He put it on the table in front of Oscar’s laptop.

“Second thing,” he said, “hide this for me. It’s my wedding gift for Tilde, and I don’t want to keep it in the rooms because I’m afraid she’ll find it.”

“Wow, that’s…” Oscar looked at him. “You really don’t know many people, do you?”

Eggsy shook his head. “Finding new friends hasn’t been at the top of my priority list.”

“We really should go grab that beer,” Oscar mumbled. “When do you want it back?”

“Day before the wedding. I’m planning on giving it to her at breakfast.”

Oscar nodded, pulling up his calendar to make a note of it. Then he turned back to Eggsy. “Can I open it?”

“Go ahead.”

Oscar opened the box. Inside was a necklace with a thin, gold chain. The pendant was a ring and inside the ring hung a small pearl.

“It’s my dad’s wedding ring,” said Eggsy. “The pearl is from the necklace my mum wore at their wedding. It was my grandma’s. Had it made when we got back from London.”

“Damn…” said Oscar under his breath. “She’ll love it.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, and I’ll be scared of losing it from now until the wedding.”

“Well, then my work here is done,” Eggsy said. “Really, though, thank you so much for this.”

Oscar gave him a pat on the shoulder. “All part of the service, but if we’re going to have that beer, then you’re the one buying. I know what the appanage is.”

Eggsy laughed. “I know what we pay you, so you can buy your own damn beer.”

“Whatever,” said Oscar, shrugging. “Eight-ish tonight?”

“Ehm, sure,” Eggsy said with a smile. “Sounds good.”

“Great!” Oscar pulled up his calendar again (and Eggsy’s) to block off the evening. “Now, go, so that I can actually be done by then.”

Eggsy did as he was told and left the War Room. He felt a little stunned, because even though he had been serious about not knowing that many people in Sweden well enough to just hang out with, he hadn’t really intended it as an invitation. A part of him hadn’t dared to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Picture of Eggsy's wedding gift to Tilde](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1x9g7ncE45Tmk6hGZXX6hdGqSGWuQeeFR)
> 
> 2.  
> Swedish: “Hej. Är det fortfarande ‘du’ och ‘Gary’ eller är det ‘Ni’ och ‘Ers Höghet’?”  
> English: "Hi. Is it still ‘you’ and ‘Gary’ or is it ‘You’ and ‘Your Highness’?"
> 
> Swedish: "Jag älskara dig."  
> English: "I love you."


	11. Chapter 11

Eggsy had said a firm ‘no’ when it came to having a stag night. Partly because he didn’t trust himself or any of his mates to not cause a scandal no PR team in the world could walk back, but just as much because he knew it would bring up too many unresolved feelings about all the people who weren’t there. Sitting down with Harry in a drawing room in Stockholm Palace and have a few beers two nights after Harry arrived in Sweden was a completely different thing, though.

The sun was setting over Stockholm and they had settled into a comfortable silence. Eggsy got up and rang for more beer. He felt embarrassed to do so in front of Harry and a part of him wished that he would never get used to it, but he had to admit that it was convenient tonight.

When he came back, two cold bottles of beer in his hand, he noticed Harry watching something move in the distance. After a quick glance out the window, making sure there actually wasn’t anything there, he put down the bottles on the table.

“You’re still seeing butterflies, aren’t you?” he asked as he sat down.

Harry blinked one too many times as he seemed to come back to here and now. “Only when I’m tired.”

“So… always?”

“Don’t listen to your mother, it’s not that bad.”

“She’s not my only source.”

“I thought you were out of the spy business?”

Eggsy rolled his eyes and pressed for a smile. He was wearing a white polo shirt and black suit trousers – something he wouldn’t have thought of as loungewear a year ago – but Harry looked as if he came straight from a debriefing. At least when Eggsy couldn’t see his green socks under the table. He looked as if he was still on the job, and it tore at Eggsy.

They had spent most of the evening discussing Kingsman. Apparently Andrew spent a large chunk of his retirement planning the shop’s reopening party, and Eggsy had already promised to attend and cut the ribbon to give the event some royal flair. The restoration of the land outside London was progressing much slower and would cost a minor fortune, so Harry was looking into other solutions. There were enough mansions and castles on the English countryside that could be bought and restored far quicker so that the recruitment of new agents could start early next year.

Eggsy cleared his throat. “I’m seeing someone.”

“Eggsy!” Harry stared at him. “You’re getting married in a week.”

“Not like that. No!” Eggsy laughed. “ _Christ_ , they might bring back the death penalty for that. No. I’m seeing a therapist.”

Harry raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question. Eggsy shrugged.

“I spent half a bloody year after you got shot being drunk and stupid and now, with this whole thing—“ he waved around the room “—I don’t really have time for any of that, so I’m trying something else.”

“I think that’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Eggsy smiled slightly. “I mean, I can’t talk about anything. Not really. Not about Roxy. Or Merlin. Or Bran— Brandon. Fuck.”

Eggsy’s voice trembled and he took a sip of his beer.

“I mostly end up talking about Dean, which I don’t want to, so then I try to talk about the prince thing which I suppose is good… but yeah…”

Eggsy fiddled with the label on his bottle, giving it way too much attention. He felt exposed and even though he knew there was no reason for it, his cheeks headed. After a drawn out silence – through which he knew Harry had been watching him – he turned his eyes up at Harry.

“Have you thought about it, talking to someone, I mean?” he asked. “I know we had people on staff before, Merlin sent me to one after you d— After V-day. So that could be something.”

Harry frowned, straightening up a little.

“Or you can talk to me,” Eggsy continued quickly, almost stumbling over the words. “Or Tilde. She’s great at listening. Or my mum. She was married to a marine, after all, and she sure knows we’re no tailors.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Well, yeah…” said Eggsy with a weak smile. “Mum cooks for you, David says you don’t sleep, your office’s a mess, you just admitted to bloody hallucinations…”

Harry put on a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, don’t think about it.”

“Alright,” said Eggsy, not believing the smile nor the words that came with it. “But just so you know, it’s okay not to be. Everyone’s dead and everything’s gone. More or less. It’s okay to not be fine. Hell, it’d be crazy to be fine.”

Harry stayed quiet, the smile fading fast. Eggsy waited, but it was really hard to not try to fill the silence with unnecessary words or reassurances. He tried to remember how difficult it had been the first few times he had opened up to Tilde, the first times he had admitted that something was wrong and that he felt like shit. The first time he had told Roxy and Merlin that he was struggling and kept seeing Harry being shot in the head when he slept. He wondered if Harry wanted to get pissed and cry on Merlin’s sofa as much as he wanted to do it on Roxy’s sometimes. He wondered if Harry had ever talked to anyone about things like this at all.

“I’m not going to force you if you don’t want to or anything,” Eggsy said, when it finally became clear that Harry wouldn’t be the one breaking the silence. “Just think about it, yeah?”

Harry nodded once. “I promise.”

“Good. Thank you.” Eggsy clinked their bottles together. “What do you say, when we’re done with these, should I ring for something stronger?”

“Well, it is your stag night, _Your Highness_.”

“Bugger off, you’re not allowed to make a habit out of calling me that.”

“No, Your Highness.”

Eggsy sighed. He got up to ask for some whisky and as the sun finally disappeared they toasted absent friends.

  


* * *

  


The final verdict was in, there would be cameras inside the church. Tilde had fought tooth and nail to keep them out, but without being able to give a proper explanation as to why she wanted it, she had been overrun by her parents and the press office. This would be the largest royal event since Tilde’s dad ascended the throne in 1997, making it a private ceremony wasn’t an option.

“Small sacrifices,” said Harry, shrugging, when a pretty discouraged Tilde had told him about it. It was the same thing he had said when Eggsy told him that his status as a gentleman was ruined since his name had been featured in the papers five times already since he landed in Sweden.

The three of them still sat down four days before the wedding and went over the minute-by-minute schedule for the wedding day and the placement of all the 67 TV cameras that would allow the Swedish people (and really, anyone with internet access) to follow Eggsy and Tilde through the day to at least minimise Harry’s (and the Statesman agents’) exposure.

Eggsy was starting to get really nervous about the wedding itself and pointing to every camera again and again didn’t make him any less so. In less than a week he would be a prince, a duke and an official knight. His coat of arms was done and would be revealed to the public on the day of the wedding. It was still almost as surreal as that day in September when this had all started.

“Should we give it to him now?” asked Tilde, pulling Eggsy’s attention from the map with the wedding procession outlined. He had been following it with his finger, trying to figure out how many good sniper hideouts there were along the route. It did nothing for his nerves.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“What?” asked Eggsy as Tilde got up from the table and skipped across the room. He gave Harry a questioning look that his friend ignored.

When Tilde came back, she was holding an envelope which she handed to Eggsy. He looked suspiciously at them as he reached out and took the envelope. It was a nice envelope, thick and bone white. On one side, Tilde had written ‘Eggsy’ with a golden pen, on the other was a stamped Kingsman symbol.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s a wedding present from us,” said Tilde, clearly excited. “Open it!”

“You two have…?” Eggsy felt very confused, but started to open the envelope. He pulled out the letter inside, stopping halfway when he saw the Greater Coat of Arms of Sweden at the top of the letterhead. He looked up at them again. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, just read the bloody thing,” said Harry.

Eggsy took out the letter. It was short, and turned out to be a press release, but his eyes grew wide as he read it. A smile started to tease in the corner of his mouth.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A suggestion,” said Tilde who had sat down next to Harry again. “A possible cover. If you want it.”

Eggsy read the letter again.

> **Prince Gary to finish his apprenticeship at Kingsman Tailor Shop, London**
> 
> Before his marriage to HRH Crown Princess Tilde, Prince Gary took part in an apprenticeship program at Kingsman Tailor Shop, Savile Row, London. At the time of the wedding, the apprenticeship was put on hold due to an explosion at Kingsman Tailor Shop.
> 
> Kingsman Tailor Shop is now restored and Prince Gary will return to London to finish his apprenticeship. The remaining apprenticeship is planned to take 3-4 years since it will run parallel with Prince Gary’s duties as the Crown Princess consort.

  
He looked between them. Harry was looking very calm while Tilde seemed full of anticipation; they were both smiling. Eggsy did as well even though he tried really hard not to, since he didn’t quite believe what he had just read.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tilde said. She looked at Harry. “There are still some things to figure out—“

“Like how to make it believable, seeing that you couldn’t even thread a sewing machine last I heard,” Harry interrupted. “Or how to convince David to let you near any fabric.”

Tilde giggled. “That too, but I was thinking more of when this would start, and logistics, and so on.”

“I really think my concerns are harder to sort out,” said Harry, and the look they exchanged made Eggsy shake his head.

He took the time to read the note a third time while Tilde and Harry pretended to bicker about all his shortcomings when it came to tailoring and time management. It was clear that they had talked this through, in detail, no matter what they were on about now.

“Oy,” he said, raising his voice to shut them both up. They looked at him, still smiling. “You’re both crazy. If you’re serious about this—“

“We are.”

“Yes.”

“—then what are we having this discussion about then?” He swept his hand over the maps and schedules spread in front of him. “It won’t matter if Harry has five minutes of TV time. My face is on bloody postcards and fridge magnets.”

“We didn’t know what you’d say,” said Tilde, “so we decided to continue with the precaution for what we knew and deal with this when we knew the new circumstances.”

“And it would have ruined the surprise if we’d called it off,” Harry added.

“Yes, that too.”

“There are also plenty of things to do besides being an active field agent,” said Harry. “Training them, for one, which would take the pressure of your public image and make your day job easier to schedule.”

“’My day job,’” Eggsy mumbled under his breath at how ridiculous that description of being a prince was. Then he said, “You’re both really okay with this?”

“Yes,” said Tilde. “We’ll figure this shit out, that’s what you said, remember?”

Eggsy smiled at how much weight she put on the word ‘we’. He exhaled slowly, finally letting the excitement seep through.

“Thank you,” he said. “Honestly, both of you… Thank you.”

“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” said Harry. “Take the time you need.”

Eggsy nodded, he would. He had made the choice to step down without really talking to any of them about it, thinking that it was the best for all involved. Now they were not only giving him options, they were reopening the discussion and telling him that they very much wanted to be a part of it.

This time he would let them.

He had told Tilde that it was his choice to be a full time prince and to give up being a Kingsman agent. Now he realised, that even though it was still his decision to make, he didn’t have to make it by himself. He got out of his chair and hugged both of them. After all that had happened this last year, no matter how surreal it felt, he wasn’t going through any of it alone, and being reminded of that was probably the best gift he could get.

The wedding in a few days would be the end of a journey, but this wasn’t an end. This was a beginning.


	12. Epilogue

Eggsy woke up slowly, sunlight falling over his face through a crack in the curtains. They never closed them completely, because waking up in the dark without any means of orientating herself made Tilde feel as if she was back in Valentine’s bunker. It made for a lot of early mornings, but it was a small compromise.

He kept his eyes closed a little longer, feeling warm and tired and calm.

Yesterday was a blur. Emotions and still images rather than anything else, but they were all good. He felt the same type of satisfaction as after a finished mission. It was done.

He remembered Tilde almost starting to cry when he hung his wedding gift to her around her neck. He remembered her kissing him for the last time before she went to get dressed, joking about how that was his last kiss as a commoner. He remembered Harry tying his shoes because his own fingers seemed to have stopped working. He remembered Daisy waving at him in church and Tilde coming down the aisle. He didn’t remember much else of the ceremony or the six kilometres open carriage ride through the streets of Stockholm, but he knew his arm would be sore after all the waving he’d done.

He remembered having thought that it was good that he had tasted all the food at the reception beforehand, because it all tasted like paper yesterday. He remembered Tilde crying at the end of his speech, but he didn’t remember holding it. He remembered them sneaking a shot of whiskey with Tequila in the bathroom. He remembered their first dance and Elton John playing _Can You Feel the Love Tonight_. (He couldn’t wait to read the papers’ speculations about that one.) And he remembered them joking about how good it was that they could catch a rerun of the highlights on telly later as he helped Tilde out of her dress.

He remembered getting into bed, too tired for anything other than a few lazy kisses. He remembered thinking that they made it as he fell asleep.

Eggsy opened one eye, peering at the bright room through his eyelashes. Over a chair in the corner lay Tilde’s wedding dress, on a hanger on the door hang his dad’s uniform. Their armours of yesterday, as bulletproof as anything he had ever worn, because stepping out on the balcony to wave to the crowds with Tilde on his arm he had felt indestructible.

He slipped out of the bed, slowly and carefully to not disturb Tilde. The floor was cold, even in June, but it didn’t bother him much. He stretched, feeling all the weird ways he had stood and moved and turned yesterday – he really needed to start making time for proper exercises again now when this was over.

He walked over to the window and pulled open the curtains. Outside the window Stockholm was slowly coming to life. In a few hours they would have a lunch with all their personal guests and later tonight they would attend a state dinner before boarding the Statesman’s plane to go on their honeymoon, but for now… Eggsy stood in the window, watching the sun rise. It was going to be a lovely day.

Everything the light touches…, he thought, feeling silly.

He was a prince. A duke. A knight.

He was a husband.

In a drawer in his study was an envelope saying that he could be tailor as well, if he wanted to. And a secret agent, if you knew how to read between the lines.

Behind him, he could hear Tilde stir.

“Eggsy,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come back to bed…”

He smiled and turned his back to the window.

He was still him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> If you have already checked out writehandman's lovely art for this fic, then you have probably figured out that it's from the epilogue. If you haven't, [you really should check it out!](https://78.media.tumblr.com/df5e36ae0ff2020f8f52d1c72ffbba51/tumblr_pc2sovK9AW1wxvcgjo2_1280.png)


End file.
